,•-£^-'0*^ •\-'^^'^-V* %--f.^^.0«-* 



V ^ 

^^0^ o, 



/"-^. 






^^ V"'?^^^^^ ^-'o^^^^G^"^ %-^^\^^ 












Of* • ' 

















<d^^ 






^<v 



^^°^ 



















s« 



PRINTS 

A BRIEF REVIEW OF THEIR 
TECHNIQUE AND HISTORY 




HERODOTUS. VENICE, I494 






COPYRIGHT, I9I4, BV HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Ptiblished November IQ14 



m 13 1914 

©C!. A 38 83.78 



PREFACE 

Prints have long been an undisturbed 
domain of the collector and scholarly con- 
noisseur. Centuries of study and research 
are resulting in the identification and de- 
scription of this vast amount of material. 
The literature on prints embodies these 
results in the form of handbooks, histories, 
catalogues for reference, essays, and special- 
izing treatises. These are written primarily 
for the use of students and collectors, with 
the elaboration and detail requisite for this 
class of readers. 

Manifestations of a widening interest are 
more evident every day. With this broaden- 
ing popular interest has come a demand for 
a plain, short explanation of "prints." In 
the absence of such a brief review and in 
answer to repeated inquiries, a series of lec- 
tures were prepared and delivered — some 



PREFACE 

years ago — by the writer. These lectures 
are herewith offered, in shghtly revised 
form, to those interested in the nature and 
development of prints. 

This little book is not a compendium of 
the graphic arts, just an introduction. Brev- 
ity and simplicity have been aimed at, the 
purpose being to awaken interest and con- 
vey initial information conducive to further 
study. 

The charm and value of a print lies essen- 
tially in the quality of line or tone peculiar to 
the process employed in its making. These 
cannot be rendered adequately by the half- 
tone illustrations which accompany these 
pages. The prints themselves must be seen 
to be truly appreciated and understood. 



CONTENTS 

I. How Prints are Made .... 1 

Introductory, 1. Bank note and magazine 
illustration, 3. Three main divisions of processes. 
Woodcut, 4. Wood-engraving, 5. Engraving, 6. 
Dry-point, mezzotint, 8. Etching, 9. Litho- 
graphy, 10. The printing presses used, 11. 

11. The Origin of Woodcut ... 12 

Not a sudden invention, 12. Utilitarian ori- 
gin, 14. The past reviewed, 15. The panel 
picture and its cheap substitute, 18. Saints' 
pictures, 20. Playing cards, 21. Increasing 
demand for pictures, 24. Block-books, movable 
type, 26. Book illustration in Germany and 
Italy, 28. Examples of early woodcuts : German, 
30, Italian, 32. 

HI. The Early Days of Engraving . 35 

Intaglio printing, the goldsmith's niello, 
35. Engraving in Germany and Italy, attitude 
and results, 37. Anonymous masters, 40. 
Schongauer, 41. Early Italian examples, 44. Pol- 
lajuolo, Mantegna, 46. Giulio Campagnola, 47. 

IV. Italy 49 

The professional engraver, 49. Marcantonio 
Raimondi, 50. The publisher, 51. Revival ; 
Carracci, 52. Painter-etchers, 53. Later develop- 
ments; Canaletto, 55. The classical engravers, 
55. Chiaroscuro woodcut, 56. 

vii 



CONTENTS 
V. Germany 59 

Culmiuation, Diirer, 60. Lucas van Leydeu, 
65. Italian influence, 66. Little masters, 67. 
Woodcut: Cranach, Holbein, 69. The two 
masters, Dlirei- and Holbein, 70. Decline, 71. 

VI. The Netherlands 73 

History. Flemish and Dutch art, 73. Engraver 
families, commerce in Saints' pictures, 75. 
Virtuosi of the graver, Goltzius, 76. Rubens 
and his engravers, 77. Van Dyck, 78. Cornel 
Visscher, 79. Rembrandt, 80. Ostade, 84. Ruys- 
dael. Landscape and animal etchers, 85. Italian 
influence, decline, 86. 

VII. France gj 

Woodcut illustrations, 87. Engraving, Jean 
Duvet, 89. The Fontainebleau school, 90. Cal- 
lot, Claude Lorrain, 91. Portrait engraving, 
93. Mellan, 94. Morin, 95. Nanteuil, 96. Ede- 
linck and others, 97. New processes, 100. Color- 
prints, book ornamentation, 101. Classical en- 
graving, Wille, 104. Italian preeminence, 105. 
Etchers, vignettists, 105. Spain: Goya, 107. 

VIII, England 109 

Early days. Hollar. English engravers, 109. 
Hogarth, 110. Bartolozzi, 110. Mezzotint en- 
gravers, 111. Earlom, 113. Wood-engraving: 
Bewick, 114. 

IX. The United States 116 

Colonial times; Pelliam, Peale, 116. Stipple; 
book illustration, 117. Wood-engraving, the 
tone engravers, 118. Etching, 120. 

viii 



CONTENTS 

X. The Nineteenth Century . . . 121 

Individual expression, 121. Blake, 122. Chodo- 
wiecki, 123. A new era, Constable, Delacroix 
and others, 124. Turner, 126. Wood-engraving 
and lithography, 127. Menzel ; Gavarni, Dau- 
mier, 129. RafEet, 130. Revival of etching, 
130. Jacque, Millet, and others, 131. Etching 
versus Engraving, 131. Haden, Whistler, 132. 
Meryon, 133. Gaillard, 134. Exacting demands 
on the graphic arts; Zorn, Klinger, 135. Con- 
clusion, 136. 

Books recommended for study of prints, 138. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Title-page to Herodotus. Anonymous . Title-page ' 
St. Margaret of Hungary. Anonymous . . 30 
Page from Ars Memorandi. Anonymous . .30' 
Page from Nuremberg Chronicle. Anonymous 30' 
Virgin and Child with St. John. Anonymous 32" 
Page from Hypnerotomachia. Anonymous . 32*^ 
Page from Morgante Maggiore. Anonymous . 32' 
Madonna of Einsiedeln. Anon. Master E. S. 40 "^ 
Death of the Virgin. Martin Schongauer . . 42 

Sibilla Samia. Anonymous 44" 

Clio, FROM the SO-CALLED Tarocchi. Anonymous 44 "" 
Battle of Nude Men. Antonio PoUajuolo . .46'^ 
Christ between Two Saints. Andrea Mantegna 46*^ 
St. John the Baptist. Giulio Campagnola . .46*^ 
Death of Dido. Marcantonio Raimondi . . 50 
Adam and Eve. Marcantonio Raimondi • • 60 

Titian. Agostino Carracci 62 ^ 

Madonna and Child. Federigo Barocci . .54- 
Torre di Malghera. Antonio Canale ... 56 

Diogenes. Ugo da Carpi 66 *" 

Four Horsemen, Apocalypse. Albrecht Durer . 60-^ 

xi 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Arms with the Skull. Albrecht Diirer . .62" 
Rf:sT IN Egypt. Albrecht Diirer . . . .62' 
St. Jerome in his Study. Albrecht Diirer . . 64"^ 
Cardinal Albrecht. Albrecht Diirer . . .64*^ 
Adoration of the Magi. Lucas van Ley den . 66'^ 

Tournament. Lucas Cranach 68' 

Johannes Zurenus. Hendrik Goltzius . . . 74' 

Rubens. Paul Pontius 76 "^ 

Jan Brueghel. Anthony van Dyck . . . . 78 ' 
Gellius de Bouma. Cornel Visscher . . . 78 " 
Adoration of the Shepherds. Rembrandt . 80"^ 

The Three Trees. Rembrandt 80' 

Janus Lutma. Rembrandt 82 '' 

Tobit Blind. Rembrandt 82"^ 

The Spinner. Adriaen van Ostade .... 84 
The Travelers. Jacob Ruysdael .... 84' 
The Diamond. Nicolaes Berghem . . . .86' 
Tour de Nesle. Jacques Callot .... 90' 

Le Bouvier. Claude Lorrain 92'^ 

Due DE Guise. Claude Mellan 94*' 

Antoine Vitre. Jean Morin 94' 

Pompone de Bellievre. Robert Nanteuil . .96*^ 
Philippe de Champaigne. Gerard Edelinck . 96 

Bossuet. Pierre Imbert Drevet 98' 

Champs Elysees. Nicolas Henri Tardieu . . 100^ 

xii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Instruction Patebnelle. Georg Wille . . 104'' 
Plate from the Caprichos. Francisco Goya . 106"^ 
Catharine of Braganza. William Faithorne . 110 '^ 
The Hon. Miss Bingham. Francesco Bartolozzi llO'' 
Mrs. Carnac. John Raphael Smith . . . . 112' 
Flower and Fruit Piece. Richard Earlom . 114" 
Thomas Jefferson. David Edwin .... 116"^ 
Chief Justice Marshall. Asher Brown Durand 118 '' 
Still-life with the Peacock. William J. Linton 118 
Plate from the Book of Job. William Blake 122' 
Home of a Painter. Daniel Chodowiecki . . 124' 
Inverary Pier. J. M. W. Turner .... 126 '^ 
^SACUS AND Hesperie. J. M. W. Turner . . 126" 
Christ Disputing with Doctors. A. v. Menzel 128 
Cartoon on Louis Philippe. Honor^ Daumier 128' 
Midnight Review. Auguste Raffet .... 130" 
Woman Churning. Jean Frangois Millet . . 130' 
Sunset in Ireland. Sir Seymour Haden . . 132"^ 
The Doorway. Venice. James McN. Whistler 132 "^ 
Le Petit Pont. Charles Meryon . . . . 1 32 ' 
Dom Prosper Gueranger. Ferdinand Gaillard 134" 

Girl Bathing. Anders Zorn 134 

Expulsion from Paradise. Max Klinger . . 134' 



PRINTS 

THEIR TECHNIQUE AND 
HISTORY 



HOW PRINTS ARE MADE 

Prints are familiar to every one of us, and 
yet the subject of prints is strangely unfa- 
miliar. If we look at a painting, a piece of 
sculpture, or at a monumental building, we 
know how these things came into being. 
Without any effort we can see in our mind's 
eye the painter, with palette and brushes, 
applying the colors on his canvas, we can see 
the sculptor thumbing the clay model on the 
stand before him, with alternate gentleness 
and force, while the spectacle of stone- 
masons and bricklayers at work is a matter 
of daily occurrence. Likewise are we daily 
face to face with prints in our homes. They 

1 



PRINTS 

are familiar objects that have always been 
there ; we are so used to them that we hardly 
see them. But have we ever conjured up, in 
our mind's eye, the vision of an engraver, 
or etcher, or lithographer at work making 
the print which is so familiar to us? It is a 
world, indeed, this field on which the ener- 
gies of thousands upon thousands of men 
have been expended, expressive of the 
thoughts of great masters, expressive, yeSy 
eloquent, of the changing mental attitude, 
the changing customs and interests of suc- 
cessive periods. There is no field, I am 
tempted to say, in all the realm of art, more 
comprehensive, more broadening than this 
subject of prints. In order fully to appreci- 
ate the phases of its development, we must 
find out, first of all, what a print is, and how 
it is made. 

The term "print," as we use it here, ap- 
plies to any design conveyed upon paper or 
any similar substance by means of pressure, 
usually in the printing-press. Prints are not 

2 



HOW PRINTS ARE MADE 

all produced in one and the same manner ; — 
if this statement should prove surprising, 
just open any magazine on an illustration 
page; then place beside it, for comparison, 
a new dollar bill. Notice the even tone of 
black in the magazine illustration and the 
intensity of the black, sharp-cut, metallic 
lines of the head on the bill. It is quite evi- 
dent that these two examples have been pro- 
duced by different means; the magazine il- 
lustration shows that the inked lines and 
dots which constitute the picture have been 
brought upon the paper with considerable 
pressure: the ink is embedded into the paper; 
whereas, if the bill is new, you will notice, 
upon close inspection, that the ink of every 
line and dot lies upon the surface of the pa- 
per. Pass your finger lightly over some of 
the heavier lines, and if your finger-tips are 
sensitive, you will distinctly feel these ridges 
of ink. Why this difference? Because hu- 
man ingenuity has devised several ways of 
obtaining an iinpression. There are three 

3 



PRINTS 

such possibilities, whicli divide the graphic 
arts into three main groups, namely : — 

Relief processes: Woodcut, wood-en- 
graving; 

Intaglio processes: Engraving, dry- 
point, mezzotinting, and the etching proc- 
esses; 

Planographic processes: Lithography, 
and its derivatives.^ 

Examples from two of these main divi- 
sions have just been under discussion, the 
magazine illustration being a relief print, 
the bill an engraving on steel, consequently 
intaglio. Let us now devote a few moments 
to their technical features, taking first the 
oldest of all the processes, woodcut. 

If we take a block of wood, nicely planed, 
finish its face with sandpaper, and cover it 
with printer's ink, an impression from that 

^ In order to keep the subject as simple as may be, we 
will leave aside that vast array of modern processes based 
upon photography, and therefore known as photo-mechan- 
ical processes (half-tone, photogravure, and the like) and 
devote our attention to the hand processes only. 

4 



HOW PRINTS ARE MADE 

blackened surface would naturally be an 
unbroken, rectangular patch of black. Now 
we take a knife with a strong, short blade, 
a woodcutter's knife, and with two slanting 
cuts we take out a thin long sliver from the 
middle of this blackened surface of wood. 
The result of an impression will now be a 
black surface with a white line where we 
have cut away the wood. Another two cuts 
parallel with the first will result in another 
white line, or rather we shall now have a hlack 
line, with a white space on either side, the 
black line being the ridge of wood standing 
between the two pieces which we have cut 
away. Could anything be simpler than this 
working recipe? — wherever black is wanted, 
leave the wood standing; where you need 
white, cut away the wood. The same theory 
applies to wood-engraving, with some changes 
in material and implements. The wood- 
engraver uses cross-grain blocks of the hard 
boxwood, instead of planks of cherry or pear 
wood, and on this hard surface the graver 



PRINTS 

replaces the knife. The graver — most use- 
ful of tools — is a long, thin, diamond-shaped 
bar of steel, ending in a blunt point with cut- 
ting edges; its wooden handle fitting the 
palm of the hand. The graver is pushed for- 
ward and ploughs with great precision across 
the block or plate, cutting lines of any degree 
of delicacy or boldness. Like the knife, it 
removes the wood, consequently leaving a 
white line or dot wherever it has passed. 
Hence the term "white -line engraving," 
often used for wood-engraving. 

When we turn to the second great divi- 
sion, to the intaglio processes, we find that 
the recipe of the woodcut has to be just re- 
versed to fit this new proposition. Consult 
the diagram of the three possibilities of 
printing; the cross-section of the relief-block 
presents a series of flat-topped ridges with 
valleys between them. The tops of the 
ridges print, the valleys are the spaces 
which are to appear white in the impression. 
The second figure, a cross-section of an in- 

6 



HOW PRINTS ARE MADE 

taglio plate, — an engraving on copper we 
will say, — shows no hills and vales, but a 
flat surface with a number of V-shaped cuts 
filled with ink. When engraving on a copper 
plate, we cut with the graver into the metal 
every line of our design that is to appear 
black. Wherever we want a white space we 
are careful to leave untouched the polished 
surface of the plate. Having completed the 
cutting - in (engraving) of our design, the 
plate is covered all over with printing-ink, 
and this is rubbed thoroughly into every fur- 
row which we have cut, so that they are all 
filled flush with the surface. The surface of 
the plate is wiped clean. An impression 
taken from the plate so prepared will show 
us a black line for every furrow we have cut. 
Small wonder that the lines on the dollar 
bill were perceptible ridges of ink, since all 
the ink in the furrows of the plate is now on 
the surface of the paper. The theory of the 
intaglio processes is plainly this: wherever 
you want black in your design, cut lines or 

7 



PRINTS 

dots into the plate ; wherever white is needed, 
leave the smooth surface of the plate un- 
touched. Based upon this formula, the 
different intaglio processes produce their 
blacks in different ways; in dry-point en- 
graving, for instance, the design is scratched 
into the metal by means of a sharp nee- 
dle-point, the etching-needle. In tearing 
through the copper the needle leaves a jag- 
ged ridge of copper standing on the sides of 
each line, this "burr" retains some ink after 
the plate has been wiped clean, and gives 
to the dry-point line its peculiar velvety, 
slightly blurred appearance. The mezzo- 
tinter begins his work by roughening the 
whole surface of the plate with the "rocker" 
into myriad indentations and tiny projecting 
teeth of copper. The plate in this condition 
prints a uniform, velvety black, the deepest 
tone obtainable. Now by scraping away the 
little teeth of copper more or less completely, 
the design is modeled at will in varying 
half-tones. The high lights are obtained by 

8 



HOW PRINTS ARE MADE 

burnishing the copper quite smooth again. 
The etcher, instead of cutting the Hues of his 
design into the copper, trusts to the corrod- 
ing action of powerful acids. Covering his 
plate with an acid-proof etching-ground, he 
draws his subject with the etching-needle, 
using just sufficient pressure to cut through 
the thin film of ground and lay bare the cop- 
per. The plate is then put into an acid bath 
which eats away the metal wherever a line 
has been laid bare. The ground is then 
washed off with a suitable solvent, and the 
plate printed. There are a number of proc- 
esses based on etching, like aquatint, 
crayon manner, stipple, soft-ground etching, 
and others, but a review, however brief, of 
all these kindred devices does not lie within 
the scope of these pages. 

We have now reviewed the relief proc- 
esses, both dependent entirely on hand 
work, and the intaglio processes, engraving, 
dry-point, mezzotint, likewise relying upon 
manual power to prepare the plate for print- 

9 



PRINTS 

ing. In the etching group of intagho de- 
vices, a chemical factor is called upon to 
lessen and accelerate the work of the hand. 
The last group to be considered, piano- 
graphic processes, is based entirely upon 
chemical and physical action. The drawing 
to be reproduced is made with fatty crayon 
or ink upon a slab of a special variety of 
limestone; the stone is then treated with 
acidulated water, and with gummed water. 
As a result, when the stone is moistened, all 
those parts which have been drawn upon 
reject the water, but have an affinity for 
printing-ink, while the portions not drawn 
upon have an affinity for water and reject 
printing-ink, as long as they are kept moist. 
Neither by ridges nor sunken furrows, just 
from one plane surface, — hence the term 
"planographic," — merely by the enmity of 
water and fatty ink are these lithographic im- 
pressions obtained. Plates of metal are often 
substituted for stone (zincography, algraphy), 
but the process always remains the same. 

10 



HOW PRINTS ARE MADE 

It goes without saying that each of these 
three possibihties of printing necessitates 
presses of appropriate construction; thus, in 
the so-called platten press, the pressure is 
exerted vertically upon the block by the flat 
metal plate which comes down upon it, on 
the same principle as in the letter-press famil- 
iar to us all. All intaglio plates are printed in 
roller presses, in which the plate, laid on an 
iron bed, passes between two rollers, one 
above, one below, as in a clothes-wringer. 
The lithographic press, finally, has a travel- 
ing bed, which passes under a stationary flat 
piece of wood. During its passage under this 
wooden bar, the paper is firmly pressed 
down upon the stone, which would be 
crushed in the other types of presses.^ 

After this summary review of the tech- 
nique of prints, let us consider, with what 
brevity we may, the great phases of develop- 
ment of the graphic arts. 

^ Lithographs made on metal plates may be printed in 
an intaglio press as well. 



II 

THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

The term "invention" is often used in 
referring to the origin of printing and of 
engraving, as though these devices had come 
into being quite suddenly, — overnight, as 
it were. The beHef is prevalent, indeed, that 
one man in Mayence originated, developed, 
perfected, established printing, and that an- 
other man in Florence originated printing 
from engraved plates about that same time 
(middle of the fifteenth century) . If we look 
more closely into these subjects, it becomes 
evident that Dame Tradition has flashed 
the light of fame upon one link only, of a 
chain of achievements which stretches back 
into the unknown. She has clothed one man, 
call him Gutenberg, call him Finiguerra, 
with the sum of thought and attainment 
which had preceded them, that the achieve- 
ment might gain added impressiveness. 

12 



THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

The printing-press, and printing from mov- 
able type, had reached a state of high 
perfection at the time when Gutenberg 
printed his epoch-making Bibles, and re- 
search has substantiated the belief that a 
period of experiment and development must 
have preceded and led up to such excellence, 
although these early days of printing still 
baffle the ingenuity of research. The genesis 
of printing from engraved plates is equally 
difficult to establish, though the claim of 
invention by any one man is as little admis- 
sible here as in the other instance. It is a 
matter of gradual development. Remember, 
it is the printing from engraved plates which 
concerns us in our inquiry. Engraving as a 
means of decorating metal surfaces dates 
back to remote antiquity, but that is foreign 
to our present subject. Only when engraving 
is used as a means of reproducing a design, 
does it enter within our sphere of interest. 
Similarly are we concerned to a certain 
extent with the wood-block method used in 

13 



PRINTS 

the days of Byzance, for stamping patterns 
upon cloth, because it is the parent of our 
woodcut. We have here, however, a device 
used for the decoration of textile fabrics, and 
we must reserve our interest for the time 
when the design printed from the wood block, 
upon paper or any other suitable carrier of 
an impression, becomes the essential consid- 
eration. 

The origin of the processes of reproduction 
is invariably utilitarian. Every advance, 
every new technical attainment, can be 
traced to the demand for devices which 
would lessen labor and save time. The 
graphic arts do not share with painting a 
development based upon a desire for aes- 
thetic expression. Their origin is imitative, 
thoroughly democratic, and every process 
continues in that lowly sphere, until the 
genius of some powerful artist lifts it into 
realms of art. For the very reason of this 
utilitarian tendency, and because of a gamut 
of expression restricted to line and tone for 

14 



THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

the interpretation of a world of color and 
form, the graphic arts, even more than other 
forms of artistic expression, need the steady 
hand of the gifted artist to sustain them on a 
high plane of excellence. Deprived of this 
guiding support, their decline to levels of 
mediocrity and commercialism is swift and 
inevitable. 

If we glance at early periods of history, 
we are readily convinced that before the fif- 
teenth century there existed no demand for 
pictorial work widespread or emphatic 
enough to call into life speedier substitutes 
for hand work. Surely no need of such sub- 
stitutes was felt in the Grseco-Roman world, 
where a well-developed system of scribes 
met the demands of their patrons. Nor were 
multiplying devices needed in the early days 
of Christianity. The new faith, to be sure, 
made its appeal to everybody, to the high- 
born and lowly alike, but it relied mainly on 
the word of the preacher for the transmission 
of its simple creed. During the dark ages 

15 



PRINTS 

of ferment, migration, and strife which fol- 
lowed, the monuments of antique culture, 
erudition, knowledge were engulfed. What 
demand could there have been for the multi- 
plying arts in that period of dense ignorance, 
of ceaseless struggle for life itself, for the 
bare necessities of life, for merely endurable 
conditions? The Church, the only institu- 
tion of stability in this sea of unrest, became 
the repository of whatever remained of tra- 
dition and erudition, — mysteries, these, to 
be jealously guarded and held as a privilege 
of the clergy. 

Owing to the prevalent illiteracy among 
the people in these dark ages, the Church, in 
its mission of spiritual guidance, relied, as of 
old, on the preacher's word. The power of 
his exhortations was seconded, however, by 
silently eloquent, impressive teachings sur- 
rounding the worshipers, namely, the scenes 
and figures of religious import, painted upon 
the walls of the church. That same endeavor 
to stimulate pious thoughts carried the mini- 

16 



THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

ature into liturgical books, into religious 
manuscripts generally. The writing-room 
of the monastery was all-sufficient to provide 
for the pious needs of clergy, rulers, and 
nobles. Here the patient copyist drew again 
and again the outlines of the large illumi- 
nated initials of his text, until he bethought 
himself of the labor he might save by imi- 
tating the cloth-printer, and cutting wooden 
relief -blocks of these outlines which he might 
stamp upon his parchment. An early device 
this, adopted in the twelfth or thirteenth 
century, but clearly foreshadowing the de- 
velopment which was soon to follow. 

Meantime, in that iron age religious en- 
thusiasm had fired the crusaders, the armor- 
clad Occident had met the Orient, bringing 
back some of the wisdom of the ancient East 
into the scholar's study and the convent 
cell, and broadening man's outlook upon the 
world. 

We know how Gothic architecture grew 
up in the North, how in the Gothic church 

17 



PRINTS 

the ample wall space, which had been here- 
tofore the realm of painting, was divided, 
reduced, suppressed. We know how the cur- 
tailed pictorial art sought new spheres of 
expression, how the panel picture took pos- 
session of the altars. Before long this pic- 
ture, which could be shifted from one posi- 
tion to another, was used independently of 
altars, for the adornment of suitable wall 
spaces in the church, until finally it found 
its way from the church to the home, hence- 
forth to be one of its indispensable adorn- 
ments. 

As painting made its way into the lay 
world, the impersonal, traditional, dogmatic 
character of sacred subjects faded away. 
Not that ecclesiastic art had lost its deeply 
religious sincerity, but the artist saw na- 
ture with new eyes; he realized the beautiful 
world around him, and lovingly painted the 
plants and flowers at the feet of the Virgin. 
He removed her throne from the formal dia- 
pered background of gold, and placed it in 

18 



THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

the midst of the actual hving world. The 
figures became more personal and lifelike; 
worldly subjects, even portraits, or at least 
efforts in the direction of individual differ- 
entiation, came within the artist's sphere, 
while as yet the sacred subject remained the 
one great theme of artistic expression. 

The panel picture had come into the home 
as a means of decoration, but the wealthy 
only could gratify their desire for this costly 
form of artistic adornment. The burgher, 
the artisan, the economical household, could 
not think of owning such painted luxury, not 
any more than they could afford the costly 
miniatures painted on parchment. Then 
some bethought themselves that they might 
cut the outline of figures on blocks of wood, 
after the manner of the cloth-printers and of 
the initial blocks which we have found in use 
in monastic writing-rooms. These outlines 
could then be printed on parchment, or on 
that new and cheaper product, paper, as an 
inexpensive substitute for panel picture and 

19 



PRINTS 

miniature. In this manner the common peo- 
ple obtained their saints' pictures or "Hel- 
gen " {H eilig en) , more or less crude in design, 
clumsy in the execution of knife-work, col- 
ored with the gayest pigments which the 
Briefmaler could find. With all their imper- 
fections these early woodcuts were prized 
and evidently found a ready market, as 
souvenirs of pilgrimages, as fit embellish- 
ments of wayside shrines or altars of the 
chapels and churches of poor parishes, as 
scapulars, or pasted in books, as makeshifts 
for the unattainable miniatures, or else they 
were simply fastened on the wall, as a 
decoration. Tastes were simple, and with 
all their crudeness, these productions — of 
greatly varying size and of every degree of 
careful or careless execution — are not with- 
out charm even to the twentieth-century 
beholder. 

The same artisans who cut and printed 
these saints' pictures found lucrative em- 
ployment in a field quite remote from reli- 

20 



THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

gious matters. Playing-cards had been intro- 
duced into Europe from the Orient, probably 
in the latter part of the thirteenth century. 
They quickly won popular favor and were 
used by rich and poor with equal zest. 
Cards exquisitely painted or charminglj^ en- 
graved attest the favor accorded the game 
by people of rank and wealth, but in making 
cards for the use of the people at large, 
cheapness of production far outweighed any 
aesthetic considerations which might have 
existed. Cards had to be sold cheaply, and 
they had to be produced in large quantities 
to satisfy the growing demand. How were 
these conditions to be met.^ One solution of 
the problem was stenciling, another stamp- 
ing the outlines on paper by means of relief- 
blocks; both were resorted to by the artisans 
of the fifteenth century, and their trade 
spread beyond the confines of Germany, to 
the south of the i\lps, causing Venetian 
craftsmen to clamor for legislative protec- 
tion of their home production. 
21 



PRINTS 

In all these early manifestations, we saw 
woodcut in the service of the common peo- 
ple; we saw it used instead of other means 
of production for reasons purely utilitarian. 
But a change is at hand, for has not the cru- 
sader sown a seed throughout the land; has 
not the human mind been awakened from 
its mediseval lethargy? The humanist arises, 
seeking enlightenment and the solution of 
life's problems amid the meager surviving 
relics and records of the art and thought of 
antiquity. Feudal conditions are grudgingly 
modified, under pressure from a new element, 
which brings about a gradual shifting of the 
balance of power, intellectually as well as 
economically and politically: the rise of the 
Town. During our early, turbulent centuries 
with their grim 

" simple plan. 
That he shall take who has the power, 
And he shall keep who can," — 

misery not only loved company, as the old 
proverb has it, but absolutely needed it. 

22 



THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

Groups of those, too weak singly to with- 
stand the attacks of that vast, lawless ele- 
ment which lived by oppression and plunder, 
huddled themselves together, built them- 
selves shelters, and intrenched themselves 
against the common foe. In the course of 
time, owing to an advantageous position or 
to intensity of commerce or industry, these 
one-time shelters grew into towns, rising in 
wealth, power, and independent spirit, girt 
about with strong walls and moats, each 
town a state within the state, protected by 
imperial grants and privileges, bound to- 
gether by the common enmity of the feudal 
power, and within the walls by an ardent 
local patriotism. Strong in their guilds and 
associations, in touch with each other and 
with the world by the constant travel of 
merchants and craftsmen, the towns became 
not only centers of wealth, but also the 
bearers of progressive thought, of art, of 
mental enlightenment. Here the graphic arts 
might well originate and flourish, for here 



PRINTS 

were their patrons, the burgher, the crafts- 
man, the people. 

The time was at hand when the call for the 
multiplying arts would become imperative 
— compelling. Man looked about, and be- 
held a world full of beauty and abuses; he 
felt himself a unit, an individual, not merely 
part of the mass of mankind, and he was 
going to think for himself; he demanded to 
know, to learn, to grasp the truths and probe 
the problems of his world. For the instruc- 
tion of this untutored multitude, eager for 
light, there were two modes of expression, 
instantly intelligible: the simple spoken 
word, and that other — the illustrative, 
explanatory picture. This latter must now 
go forth also among the people, to help in the 
task of enlightenment; not the panel picture, 
to be sure, nor the miniature in the costly 
manuscript, for aside from their costliness 
they could never numerically satisfy so uni- 
versal a demand. In response to the call — 
we are now in the fifteenth century — we see 



THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

woodcut pictures pasted into manuscripts, 
to form edifying picture books, the pictures 
printed from wood blocks, a few lines of text 
added with the pen. Then both picture and 
text are cut into the same wood block in 
imitation of the picture manuscripts. These 
early "block-books," of Biblical or moral- 
izing contents, were intended for the use of 
pupils in the monastic schools which were 
then the only educational institutions. 

In the early days of woodcut, impressions 
were taken from the wood block by laying a 
sheet of paper on the inked surface of the 
block and rubbing the back of the paper with 
a stiff scrubbing brush, or with a flat piece of 
wood, so as to bring it in close contact with 
the inked ridges on the surface of the block. 
It is evident that neither the quality nor yet 
the speed of this form of printing could long 
satisfy even the most easy-going craftsman. 
A more perfect mode of printing was needed 
and gradually evolved, culminating in the 
printing-press. Similarly the cutting of let- 

25 



PRINTS 

ters of the text on the picture blocks — in 
the so-called block-books — must soon have 
proved itself impracticable, for the reign of 
these books is quite brief. One is tempted to 
let fancy play around the bald facts, and to 
watch the artisan, wearily cutting the same 
letters again and again into the wood block, 
until he bethinks himself, — a half - dozen 
others likewise: "Why cannot I saw off the 
lettering cut on another block, cut it up, 
word by word, or, better yet, letter by letter, 
then put the letters together in words and 
sentences as I need them, and use them with 
my newly cut picture? It would save a deal 
of trouble ! " Thus the next step was movable 
type, used around, between, together with, 
the blocks bearing the illustrations. The 
rapid spread of type-printing simultaneous 
with these developments concerns us merely 
because the vast number of illustrated books 
published during that period greatly favored 
the development of woodcut illustration. 
Throughout these developments, we al- 
26 



THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

ways discern the same utilitarian element 
which I have pointed out. Far from originat- 
ing in any striving for a higher, more ideal 
form of artistic expression, the devices for 
printing both pictures and text were simply 
means to save labor and expedite publica- 
tion. The manuscript, the miniature, were 
the ideals to be approached, and they were 
high ideals, to be sure. Distinguished hu- 
manists like Pope Nicholas V, Poggio, 
Giannozzo Mannetti, and others, being 
themselves experts in calligraphy, demanded 
the best efforts of their scribes and miniatur- 
ists. It is a pleasure merely to look at their 
books. The material used is invariably 
parchment, the bindings in the Vatican and 
at Urbino, crimson velvet and silver. It 
could hardly be expected that these men, 
who spared neither pains nor expense to 
show their respect for the contents of a book, 
would view^ the advent of printing with any- 
thing like satisfaction. Their collective feel- 
ings are well summed up in the one remark 

27 



PRINTS 

of Federigo da Urbino, that he would be 
ashamed to own a printed book. 

Not by these nor for then' use had type- 
printing and picture -printing been called 
into life, but by the needs of the people, and 
at the people's call the world was flooded 
with a multitude of works, informative or 
entertaining in character. Soon German 
printers set up presses in Italian cities, and 
ere long the publishing centers of the South, 
especially Venice, vied with Germany in 
importance of production. 

Book illustration was considered from a 
very different point of view in Germany and 
in Italy. German illustration grew out of a 
demand for and pleasure in the explanatory 
picture. The demand for picture books and 
for books consisting chiefly of illustrations 
came from a public easily pleased, satis- 
fied with crude outline cuts daubed over 
with colors. In Italy illustration came in 
answer to a desire for artistic illustrative 
ornamentation, on the part of a public of 

28 



THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

cultivated taste. For this reason the Ger- 
man illustrated book bears a character 
largely instructive, while the Italian illustra- 
tion is essentially decorative. Very few of 
the early books in the German language are 
devoid of illustrations. The pictures consti- 
tute their decoration, — they are used as 
chapter headings, — long before the advent 
of purely ornamental embellishments. In 
Italy the printed book takes over from the 
manuscript the idea of decorative embellish- 
ment. Borders are stamped — with relief- 
blocks — upon the printed pages of early 
Venetian books, and colored by hand. This 
craving for color is as old as mankind; its 
demands are urged upon the graphic arts at 
all stages of their development. The demand 
for color caused the manuscript to be illu- 
minated, and the pen-drawn outline of the 
early miniature to be filled in with pigment ; 
we have seen its call answered in the crudely 
colored saint's picture. The outline is ex- 
planatory, intellectual, the coloring adds a 

29 



PRINTS 

sensual pleasure, and this additional feature 
of bright color was soon demanded also of 
the printed book. The printer's answering 
endeavors are seen in the red initials printed 
into pages of black text, in title-page designs, 
arms and ornaments, in borders and dia- 
grams printed in two, sometimes three col- 
ors. Another effort in this direction of color 
is the chiaroscuro ^ woodcut, but that belongs 
to a later period. A few illustrations will 
convey a more definite idea of these early 
woodcuts. Here is a dignified, pleasing ex- 
ample of the "Helgen," cut in outline, as 
usual, and colored by hand (the dark tones 
on the garments and elsewhere are due to 
this coloring). No shade-strokes are as yet 
introduced, merely an outline; the rest is 
left to the colorist. After that, inscriptions 
are cut into the block, or written in, and this 
combination of lettering and picture carries 
us to the block-books. 
A typical page from the "Ars Memo- 

1 Pronounce: keearoskooro. 
30 




ST. MARGARET OF HUNGARY 
Woodcut with hand coloring 



■ii fl'Jiirr ijffrruo miiiTfl Tfv=- :^~rr mT^s-^^ ?i. ''?.^^:^-f« i 



■iifl'jiirrpfffrijojuiu'ra 
uluatiabtimiiiiiljrlui 
vf !io ai vquitV wHiiu 

■roiu.i rmil vfcftstirabaf 
imutii uiMtcuca'bfpiuqui 
ni mi[hc''iuuumhSfuui 
atDifibftui' ^ 



iViiTjift^ebdauamifHiiifl 
3ii[oiuoiiio unt m iiKlin 

^J^^'ijrm.aa (jninhorjot 
roat aiiKact 




ft) sir miZ.^' 



n»«^P|V-^ 



li^^ 






i- 



^leiieiiafei'/snitfs 




mi 



3J 









BLOCK-BOOK PAGE 

Ars Memorandi 



ocfDJcrlc 




OViii:iu.wiFiiJnu|;ii(t.lmlitrii4Tii(Jiii ^l|"■l■ ivcfolfiudg 
H.i.l) .Ui|[l)n>itiini<l(ciiict (uirc|<ri!-ii» nail).<lil).li\'uric( 
p :iM lunnS vrO faiJju loni.voii aifiailicb* gl.imlKlui ivtgt 
iiKt ^^>- [U-.rL'citperichrct woI^f .ifn.iiT- t-igftcs moiititd in.utii 
^^l).o.i«.iSinur.<F(i.livbaMioti» Sin ni.uiKD Icljivclltt 
V^ ir .11 ^t bifti )af »oti 3iii ili.iiio !ltm.iitcrt. 

O.iK ■nuuia tin t,imi|clKi bac(l<r n\nbt M.!cb cis.iiitiiiig'i-il 
n itt'i lilitliiT In i- mi ((c|<l)ihitii roil Cl.iudio t>(m t.iiftr 
(1.|.',na ■lvl!^^^>ni>cg«tful6alMl^<!lcfl.l(^^.l•^» fpMchtij 
Tup:'. ■);.! iii'ii-.vi"if>6ij.im'>crngi%t. ' ' 

1. 1 ■ ■ I , ■,"' .■',iui.ui)«l>il'bM< 
bticit ira gcntrfts 
bJctniiffolbcii^ 
.itinllj 6ictcil)'« *>» 'Jil 
iq. wg «tolia» aU 6i( bifio:!"! 1^1 



?5l.1t CXXf! 

P.iUnhituft 





-l.ia)»rrriiv>n.iojriiiKiwiiKjiii«rcii.ui.;ingiiuit:o.iinvi<woJ 03.1111.1 Ok- pi 01' r i 
b' :r uH'gcii*(t f.u|"rt D.;I.Ti»ni v:i» (B,Jum Kiigcr t'.iil.rt.i.ii [Kb von gcltciliup ^ . , N .' i ! 
I ■ b«b'.!uSfr.iri 6f9 f.;i^6 3lii«luni b«n'iB(i l)Mcbt.Di(i |5.itn|! 6cr 55tbsvcir,ci n.n. i 
I'll t)fibrtiKr£<ili,tmttfclj obex £iiliMnifJ> (i'-i'itj i>f "> f* tluf* Kbobjmijs tlciljitt vl'ct"^(■ 
ii<p;imEt(L£)jrc|r.i»if I vw atiiU j'driiv »iii) 6«c biliqic iruiiig i»«ncii iiivmiilii ret gen. i 





PAGE FROM THE NUREMBERG CHRONICLE 
Nuremberg, 1493 



THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

randi" (probably cut in the Netherlands) 
shows the character of these school books. 
This is designed to help theological students 
in memorizing the Holy Writ. The pictures 
are good; the text, hard to read, was soon to 
be replaced by movable type. 

A page, from the Nuremberg "Chronicle " 
of 1494, shows us the state of woodcut, 
technically as well as its use in books. 
Many examples might be shown, from 
different parts of Germany, from schools 
swayed by various currents of artistic 
thought. Common to them all, despite their 
crudity, is a growing familiarity with wood- 
cut, a realization of its possibilities and 
of its limitations. Artistic talent of a high 
order — compared with earlier productions 
— reveals itself, resulting from a division 
of labor. The artisan of the playing-cards 
and early saints' pictures could never have 
risen to these heights of creative independ- 
ence. His simple figures were copied from 
manuscripts, or from some other handy 
31 



PRINTS 

model, but when it came to supplying the 
growing demands of book-illustration with 
material from fields without precedent in past 
productions, the publishers were constrained 
to entrust artists with these designs, and 
the woodcut maker was given the task — not 
easy, though mechanical — of cutting with 
precision the lines drawn by the artist. 

This development is common to Germany 
and Italy alike; but throughout the early 
productions of the Southern country, we 
seem to hear an echo of the sublime har- 
monies achieved in painting. For instance, 
in this large "Helgen" of Italy: a simple 
outline woodcut, this Virgin and Child with 
St. John, but in its simplicity what dignity 
and strength. The accents introduced by 
slight decorative indications and the shade- 
lines in the hair add charm to the simple, 
charming composition, by contrast of tone. 
Excellent cutting, this, after a masterly 
design. But in a country which has just 
reached the zenith of artistic achievement, 

32 




VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN 
Woodcut 




HoraqiulcaiiimJcchcperliclolcccfca.Iooccultoiioloiionrerpdi 
dc.poftpoiicndoclnacuralcbirognD.rctroadcjiicllainluinujuiiotafcn 
ciamoracumiiclicmcntufcftinaiuilaiiia.ioandai. Allaqiialcquamlo 
eircreucnutor^ionciiolmcntcarbirraiu.inaltra parte la iiduia.Oiic& 
<jiiandi)aqiicllolocoprijptTan[ccrai;iUMt.i,altioiidcap[.>arfac(lercaffir 
niaU.t;tciificomogliloclimniuiia,liniilniciucpmriiauc&ilclLCtciio- 
Icuoccmutauacumarlcfti concent!. Diinquc per i]iid}a]iiaiic fatica. 
fttantocummolcda fctccorfoliancndn.mcdcbilitai i,into.cheapcna 
potciiaiocllanbcorporiiftciiurf.HtgliartannatifpiritiliabiliiioiuHcii 
dodcorpograucmcnteartaticatoliogi mai Colleiiirc.fi pcrcl ttanf. '.do pa 
uorc, (i pcrla urgcntc fete. quale per <J loiigo pcriiagal)oiido indagare. 
& ctiam per le graiieanxietate, & per lacalda liora . ilifcio . & leliflo 
dalle propriciiirtute.alcro uiiquaticulo dcfideraiido iicappecendo.le 
nonadlcdeliilirate membra qiiieto ripofo. MirabonJo dellaccidenie 
cafu,(1upidi)dcilaiiicllifliMuocc,&molropiii perritioiiarmeiii rcgio- 
<ic mrognila Sc incidu , ma jITii .nnariio pacifc. Olira de qiicflo.fone 
me doletia.clic cl liquente foute labdnofamentc trouato.&eum tanto 
folcrtcinquifitofiincldblato&perditodagliochiinm I'erlcqii.dctu- 
tccofc.iolictti cuni lanimii incrieato de ainbigim.iii,& nmlto irapcn- 
fofo.FmalmciuepertaiicalalTicudmecorrcpto.iuiioclciirpo (Vigerceu 



PAGE FROM HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI 
Venice, 1499 




■Tt)pi™KBBlE3| 






THE ORIGIN OF WOODCUT 

we may expect, likewise, such remarkable 
decorative designs as the title-page border 
for the Venetian " Herodotus " of 1494, which 
frames the title of this vokime. 

It is the golden era of typography, this 
last decade of the fifteenth century. Brought 
to Italian towns by German printers, both 
type and illustration soon fall in line with 
the prevailing high standard of excellence. 
If further proof were needed, it would be 
found in this page from a Venetian publica- 
tion, the " Hypnerotomachia Poliphili." See 
how w ell the beautiful type of the text har- 
monizes with the illustration, how nicely the 
values of both are adjusted to form a har- 
monious page. Simple, unpretentious out- 
line is used to convey the beauty of the artis- 
tic conception. These same characteristics 
will be met again in engraving as it is used 
by Italian masters. Woodcut as well as the 
other forms of reproductive art remain the 
servants, never become the friends of artists 
in Italy. 

33 



PRINTS 

For brevity's sake, we must pass by north- 
ern Italy and turn to Florence which was, 
next to Venice, the foremost southern pub- 
lishing center. In this example, taken from 
Pulci's ''Morgante Maggiore," published in 
1500, we notice a keener appreciation of the 
possibilities of woodcut. Broad masses of 
white, with severe outline, scantily shaded, 
contrast with bold masses of black, whose in- 
tensity of effect is modified and blended by 
means of tenuous white lines, a manner like- 
wise adopted in illustrations for the force- 
ful sermons of Savonarola, whose teachings, 
widely read, necessitated a number of suc- 
cessive editions. 



Ill 

THE EARLY DAYS OF ENGRAVING 

Having followed woodcut from its begin- 
nings to the end of the fifteenth century, it 
behooves us now to devote our attention to 
the earliest intaglio process, namely, engrav- 
ing. 

Ever since the days of antiquity it had 
been the practice of metal-workers to cut 
decorative designs into the surface of the 
metal. Armorers and goldsmiths practiced 
this art of engraving in mediaeval and Re- 
naissance times. For our present purposes 
the absorbing question is this: How did the 
idea of printing from this decorated metal 
first suggest itself? We may get a clue by 
watching the engraver at work. With the 
graver he cuts a maze of lines into the metal; 
it is almost impossible to see the design 
owing to the glitter of each new-cut furrow. 
This troubles the engraver himself, and in 

35 



PRINTS 

order to see just what he has done, he 
smears the plate over with a mixture of 
lamp-black and oil, rubbing it well into the 
furrows. Then he wipes the plate clean, and 
now the design stands out plainly in black 
lines upon the shining metal surface. If he 
were now to take a piece of paper and press 
it against the plate, the black color in the 
furrows would adhere to the paper, and 
every line cut into the metal would be repro- 
duced there. In such an accidental way, no 
doubt, the possibility of obtaining impres- 
sions from intaglio plates became known 
some time about or before the middle of the 
fifteenth century. But, of course, such an 
impression taken by hand pressure is bound 
to be very imperfect, and it may have been 
some time before some goldsmith thought it 
worth while to experiment with these print- 
ing possibilities. At first impressions may 
have seemed useful as guides for further 
work on the metal, or they may have served 
as memoranda of work done and delivered. 

36 



THE EARLY DAYS OF ENGRAVING 

As a matter of fact, goldsmiths did make 
use of this new-found mode of printing, and 
took impressions from their small decorative 
niello plates, before filling in the engraved 
lines with the final black enamel, — the 
""nigellum." 

If woodcut were dubbed the democrat 
among the graphic arts, certainly engraving 
must be called the aristocrat of the family. 
It originates in the goldsmith's workshop, 
amidst a guild of skilled designers, who not 
unfrequently practice painting together with 
their craft. No wonder that in such hands 
engraving should shape itself along artistic 
lines from the start. In Germany engraving 
finds a ready welcome among other mani- 
festations of an art essentially of the town, 
of the burgher, while the art of the Italian 
quattrocento celebrates its great triumphs 
in the erection or adornment of sumptuous 
edifices, under the fostering care of princes 
and prelates. The German naively depicts, 
with minute precision, the scenes and en- 
37 



PRINTS 

vironments of his homely sphere; all sub- 
jects, whatever their time or comitry, are 
shifted into the familiar setting of his own 
time and his own surroundings. Hence we 
see the crucifixion taking place in a clear- 
ing amidst firs ; we find German and Dutch 
burghers in the scenes of the Passion, or 
kneeling in adoration — as Magi — before 
the new-born Child. 

The Italian artist is no less zealous in his 
search for nature's truths, but at the same 
time he harks back to those remains of for- 
mer artistic perfection which are just then 
being reclaimed from the soil, heirlooms 
from classical antiquity. Guided by both, he 
imparts a semblance of life to his ideal forms, 
that they may appear real, though belonging 
to a higher world. The cult of antiquity 
establishes a retrospective tendency in the 
choice of subjects represented. Traditional 
themes taken from the Bible, from legend 
and mythology, are used again and again 
with changes in the composition, in costume, 

38 



THE EARLY DAYS OF ENGRAVING 

lighting and color scheme, all in the constant 
endeavor to excel in perfection of form and 
composition, and in harmonious, beautiful 
coloring. 

In Germany purses are more slender, cus- 
tomers are content to adorn their homes 
with woodcuts or engravings instead of 
paintings. Pictures are wanted, with figures 
carefully drawn, explicit pictures, finished, 
natural in appearance, with plenty of detail 
in figures and accessories, something appeal- 
ing to their humor, to their piety, to their 
own sphere of interest. Hence the tendency 
to carry every scene into the familiar set- 
ting of actuality; hence the interest in the 
natural surroundings of the scene ; hence the 
predominance of Biblical and religious sub- 
jects which appeal to the pious ; and for others 
the scenes of daily life, tournaments, soldiers, 
not to forget plates and books of designs for 
the use of craftsmen. The production of pic- 
ture-like prints in which hand coloring was 
not to be considered, necessarily brought 
S9 



PRINTS 

about a speedy development of technique. 
Even in early work it seems as though the 
German engraver realized, more than his 
Italian contemporary, the possibilities of the 
engraved plate; the figures are quaint, rem- 
iniscent of the Gothic past, but they are well 
cut, in clear, sweeping outline. The shading 
is simple, but not timid or awkward, and 
pleasantly follows and accents the form. 
Few of these fifteenth - century engravers 
have left us as much as a name or the most 
meager data as to their lives. In many cases 
we have not even a date, a sign, or an initial 
placed somewhere on the print, as a means 
of identification. We are conscious, in these 
early examples, of the artistic spirit in which 
the engraver treats the saint's picture and 
the playing-card, extensive fields, exploited 
already by primitive woodcut. A choice 
between eminent representatives among the 
anonymous engravers would lie between the 
so-called Master of the Playing-Cards, the 
Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, and Mas- 

40 




MADONNA OF EINSIEDBLN 

Master E. S. 



THE EARLY DAYS OF ENGRAVING 

ter E. S. An illustration of the excellence 
achieved by the last named artist will be found 
in his presentation of the Madonna of Einsie- 
deln. Notice the development of the pic- 
ture element, the sureness with which the 
graver is used, long strokes and delicate 
touches, varying with the needs of modeling 
and design. This mastery over the medium 
is yet more apparent in the engravings of 
Martin Schongauer, the leading figure in 
fifteenth - century engraving. In his work 
we still discern the peculiar characteristics 
of the period, long slim hands and feet, 
an emaciation which brings the head into 
prominence, a tendency — reminiscent of the 
Middle Ages — to treat each object inde- 
pendently, as a unit, as a symbol of its kind; 
but then what purity and sincerity emanate 
from his figures. In his "Death of the Vir- 
gin," what a harmonious effect, what keen- 
ness of observation. He knows little of the 
rendering of nudity, — all Northern artists 
are hampered in that way, — but his bodies, 
41 



PRINTS 

though lacking in structural skill, are won- 
derfully well caught in pose and gesture. His 
observation and his resourceful imagination 
were fully recognized by both Diirer and 
Raphael, who both availed themselves of his 
achievements. The graver helps to round 
the forms, by following the direction of the 
curves. Long, steady, curving strokes, em- 
phasized in the deep shadows, breaking up 
— in the lights — into dots which blend into 
the high lights of white paper. No hesitat- 
ing, little criss-cross strokes here, but a dig- 
nified simplicity of line which enhances the 
dignity and simplicity of his compositions. 
Remember that in order to appreciate these 
essential qualities of line and of resulting 
effect, you must consult the original prints; 
half-tone illustrations cannot be expected 
to convey more than a general idea of the 
originals. 

It would be unfair to attribute all this 
artistic development to German initiative 
alone. Italy has practically no share in it, at 

42 




DEATH OF THE VIRGIN 
Martin Schongauer 



THE EARLY DAYS OF ENGRAVING 

this period, but the close commercial rela- 
tions existing between Germany and the 
Biirgundian Netherlands must have facili- 
tated an artistic intercourse most beneficial 
to the former country. The stupendous crea- 
tions of the brothers Van Eyck, of Van der 
Weyden, Memling, Van der Goes, and others 
did induce workers in the artistic crafts to 
visit the Low Countries. Their contempla- 
tion must have been a source of stimulating 
inspiration to the German painters, and in- 
directly to German engraving. Direct influ- 
ence there could not be, since we look in vain 
through the ranks of this flourishing school 
of Flemish painters for any manifestation in 
the graphic arts. Only the arts of opulence: 
painting, costly illuminated manuscripts 
with miniatures, or the woven tapestries of 
Arras and Brussels, brocades^ and laces, were 
produced in the prosperous towns and at the 
brilliant ducal court of Burgundy. 

Early Italian engraving begins with the 
43 



PRINTS 

niello of the goldsmith, little silver plates for 
ornamental uses, with minute scenes and 
figures, usually well cut, as might certainly 
be expected in a guild so highly skilled. It is 
interesting to follow engraving as it broadens 
beyond the neat and primarily ornamental 
sphere of the craft, into the large field of art. 
Florence, the center of dignified, conserva- 
tive art, the Florence of Botticelli has given 
us the two classical series of "Sibyls" and 
*' Prophets." The manner of execution, as 
we see in the example shown, is still that of 
the goldsmith, fond of ornament, of detail, 
shading with minute strokes, close together, 
which blend to form a tone. The other ex- 
ample is selected from a North Italian se- 
ries of the same period. It forms part of 
what by some authorities is thought to be a 
set of "Tarocchi," a game of cards peculiar 
to Italy. Less severe, more graceful than the 
Florentine example, it is another triumph of 
the goldsmith in the field of the graphic arts. 
From him engraving passes under the sway 

44 




//ixHOCHEPRESTO N£V£ftRA. OyELDlf 
Cf CHELVaRALETEN£BRE SfRRATF 
trcoGLERASSI NODIEPRDFETIE 
DEllAGRANSfNAGHOGA RllASCATE 
SARANLEUfiBRADEUEGFNTE Pit 
VEDRA^Sl EAEDEYiyEMTlERALPATE 
ELVENIRSVO JNGRENBOAVlR.GINV£RA. 
CHECOSI MOSTRa^ ELCIELO E06N1S-PERA. 




SIBILLA SAMIA 
Florence, 15th Century 




D\' , :, CllOXVUll 



CLIO, FROM THE SO-CALLED TAROCCHI 

Northern Italy, 15tli Century 



THE EARLY DAYS OF ENGRAVING 

of the painter. If we compare Italian and 
German graver- work of those days, a plate 
of Mantegna, for instance, and a plate of 
Schongauer, we shall readily perceive that in 
engraving the German master thinks in line. 
The Italian painter thinks, not in line, but in 
masses of light and shade, in terms of the 
antique marbles, which he has studied with 
such enthusiasm. His design goes on the 
copper as it would be jotted down on paper 
with the pen, without consideration of the 
graver, except that it seems a useful imple- 
ment for multiplying his sketches, which are 
wanted in many studios and workshops. A 
simple, even outline, and for shading, parallel 
lines, straight and close together, generally 
in a uniform diagonal direction, — that is 
all. Fine early impressions from plates of 
this character have quite the charm of a 
drawing; deep shadow-tones are then visible, 
caused by a system of slight, tone-giving lines 
over the heavier shadings. When these have 
worn off, they leave only a system of hard, 
45 



PRINTS 

wiry -looking shade -strokes; unfortunately 
the good early impressions are very, very 
rare, so that we are accustomed to look upon 
the gray, worn impressions usually found as 
being the actual work of the artist, which is 
unfair. The absorbing interest of antique bas- 
reliefs is evident in the large "Battle of Nude 
Men," by Antonio Pollajuolo, breathing the 
enthusiasm with which Italy told anew the 
artistic message of the distant past, yet lack- 
ing the poise and moderation which we ad- 
mire in the grand classical sculptures. In his 
eagerness to proclaim the beauty and power 
of the human body in vigorous action, he far 
outstrips his powers of expression, yet his 
muscular exaggerations need not materially 
lessen our enjoyment of this powerful, ex- 
pressive print. In Andrea Mantegna, we 
reach the central figure of this early period 
of Italian engraving. In him are combined 
the humanist's devotion to classical art and 
the fiery energy of a man of action, filled 
with his art, rugged, stern, taking from 
46 




^ o 

r A4 



►J e 




CHRIST BETWEEN TWO SAINTS 
Andrea Mantegna 




ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST 
Giulio Campagnola 



THE EARLY DAYS OF ENGRAVING 

nature and antiquity the forms of artistic 
expression. At his hands the world is in- 
vested with a grandeur seldom achieved, 
inspiring to his contemporaries, helpful and 
stimulating to young Durer in his strivings 
toward greater breadth, simplicity, and unity 
of composition. In Mantegna's " Christ be- 
tween two Saints," we find the same scant 
means of graver-work which he employed in 
all his austere compositions: a well-defined 
outline, even, without swelling, softening ac- 
cents, simple shading, generally in a uniform 
diagonal direction; nowhere an attempt at 
texture, or differentiation of color. The sub- 
jects are all treated as though they were cut 
in high relief on slabs of stone, without vari- 
ation of surface or suggestion of distance. 
Venetian influence mitigates the ruggedness 
of Mantegna's gaunt, imposing "John the 
Baptist," by means of the unusual, soft, 
stippling technique adopted by Giulio Cam- 
pagnola, which gives the print more the ap- 
pearance of a grainy wash drawing, in con- 

47 



PRINTS 

trast with the usual pen-and-ink aspect of 
early Italian prints. Scores of other impor- 
tant examples might be adduced, but they 
can easily be found in any good history of 
engraving. 



IV 

ITALY 

The sixteenth century brings new devel- 
opments to be noted, new factors to be con- 
sidered. In Germany it rings in the cuhni- 
nation of artistic development under the 
leadership of Albrecht Durer, whose tower- 
ing personality lifts both engraving and 
woodcut to high levels of excellence. The 
cultivation of the technique of engraving 
has carried Germany far and away beyond 
the South, in a technical perfection duly 
appreciated in Italy; and when the demand 
for prints grows, when they become a mar- 
ketable article, the Italian engraver copies 
German prints in order to gain the requisite 
technical knowledge. This Italian engraver^ 
however, is not a painter - engraver as in 
Germany, an artist, namely, engraving his 
own designs. We know that the Italian artist 
continues intent on grander tasks and indif- 
49 



PRINTS 

ferent to the charms of the. graver, hence a 
division of labor: the busy painter jots down 
the sketch or cartoon and the professional 
engraver undertakes the lengthy task of 
transferring, of interpreting the artist's 
drawing by means of the graver. The subtle 
continuity of thought, from the first concep- 
tion to the finished plate, which we prize in 
original engraving, is necessarily destroyed in 
such collaboration, but the engraver, work- 
ing exclusively on the copper plate, is able 
infinitely to vary and develop the resources 
of the process by dint of practice. A noted 
instance of such collaboration is found in 
the "Death of Dido," engraved after Raph- 
ael's design by Marcantonio Raimondi. The 
lifework of Marcantonio is mainly devoted 
to the reproduction of sketches of the great 
Urbinate, whose genius inspires the engraver 
and lifts him to the highest rank in sixteenth- 
century Italy. His pliable graver, trained by 
much copying after Durer and other North- 
ern masters, delicately outlines the figures. 

50 




DEATH OF DIDO 
Marcaiitonio Raimondi 




ADAM AND EVK 
Marcantoiiio Raiinondi 



ITALY 

The shade-strokes follow and accent in easy 
curves the rounding forms and the grada- 
tions of light and shade. There is variety in 
the line, no longer the uniform diagonal 
shading of the early period. It is, in a word, 
excellent engraving, which is seen likewise 
in his "Adam and Eve," after a figure sketch 
of Raphael. The latter print shows also the 
pitfalls which await the thoughtless copyist. 
Raphael's cartoon for this print shows the 
two lovely figures without any background 
whatever; Marcantonio, always at a loss 
without a definite model to copy, looked 
for a suitable background, and found it in 
a German print which he faithfully pieced 
in, peasant houses and all, as a setting for 
Adam and Eve! 

About this time the publisher of prints 
appears, buying plates from engravers and 
publishing them, centralizing a commerce 
which — before this — had been carried on 
by the engraver himself or by the artist who 
employed him. This commercial factor low- 

51 



PRINTS 

ers the standard of engraving, both by the 
choice of subjects demanded of the engraver, 
with a view mainly to a ready sale, and by 
the quality of work tolerated. The only ex- 
cuse for some of the plates published must 
have been their cheapness. Under these con- 
ditions and, moreover, at a time when paint- 
ing was rapidly declining, one cannot look to 
the graphic arts for masterpieces. Venice, it 
is true, is yet in her glory ; encouraged by the 
interest of Titian, woodcut flourishes for a 
while at the hands of Boldrini and others. 
As to engraving, Venetian art demanded of 
it a technique strongly expressive of color; 
a new impetus was needed for a revival 
of the medium. This was supplied by en- 
gravers from the Netherlands, where the 
technique of engraving had been highly 
elaborated in this the latter part of the six- 
teenth century. A noted representative of 
this Italian revival is the painter-engraver 
Agostino Carracci. If we examine this por- 
trait of Titian, engraved after the great 

52 



TriTiANi VL c FUJI p I c i"o pl s c elEbeMjmOc 




TITIAN 
Agostino Carracci 



ITALY 

master's own painting, Carracci's skill in 
engraving will be at once apparent. Long 
parallel strokes, close together, give a rich 
deep hue to cloak and cap. The brown fur 
trimming, with its loose, broad handling, 
contrasts effectively with the delicate work 
on beard and hair. The short, swelling 
stroke used in the light background, the 
clear, transparent cross-hatching on the 
cheek, all denote great advance in differen- 
tiating this variety of textures. 

Thereafter, as engraving sinks into rou- 
tine and commercialism, let us turn to etch- 
ing, a process likewise introduced from the 
North and practiced in Italy since the six- 
teenth century. Its easy technique offered 
many advantages to the artist over the in- 
tricacies which had crept into engraving, to 
be mastered only by long practice. The ease 
and freedom of the etched line, its expres- 
siveness and — not least — the accidental ef- 
fects resulting from unforeseen action of the 
acid, appealed to the artists, but the process 
53 



PRINTS 

came too late to share with engraving in the 
reflected glory of the grand Renaissance pe- 
riod. Etching is the medium used by Par- 
meggiano, Primaticcio, Guido Reni, and 
many others, but they do not take the 
graphic arts any more seriously than their 
predecessors in Italian art. Their plates 
are hasty experimental jottings, which show 
that their main interest is centered on more 
pretentious conceptions ; only rarely do they 
attempt the picture-like elaboration which 
we find in this "Madonna and Child." It is 
the work of Federigo Barocci, certainly one 
of the best painter-etchers of the period, and 
reveals to some extent the rich, effective 
accents, the freshness and freedom of line 
attainable in etching, which is to find such 
splendid exponents in the Netherlands. It 
is well worth while, though not within the 
scope of this condensed review, to dally 
amidst these sixteenth-century etchings, and 
then, proceeding to a later period, to linger 
over the powerful, direct presentations of 

54 




J A" is 




MADONNA AND CHILD 
Fedeiigo Barocci 



ITALY 

Giuseppe Ribera and to glance at the figure 
sketches of Salvator Rosa. The eighteenth 
century brings us the spirited compositions 
of the two Tiepolo, effective, with sharp, 
sparkhng play of light and shade, and An- 
tonio Canale (Canaletto), who makes us feel 
the very breeze which blows, in his etch- 
ings, and the warmth of the sunshine which 
bathes his Venetian views. What more 
delightful glimpse of the Italian coast than 
this "Torre di Malghera" with the dazzling 
white watch-tower and the exquisite, lumi- 
nous handling of sea, sky, and distance. The 
same eighteenth century witnesses an in- 
tense revival of activity in engraving. The 
technical triumphs then achieved in France 
stimulate Italian engravers, whose mastery 
of an elaborate technique is plentifully ex- 
emplified in the plates of Raphael Morghen, 
Volpato, Longhi, Toschi, and a number of 
other well-known men in the large group 
of "classical" engravers. Their energies and 
skill are mainly devoted to the interpreta- 

55 



PRINTS 

tion of those glorious creations of painters of 
the Renaissance, which had entirely baffled 
the early engravers with their limited tech- 
nical resources. These thousands of plates 
were exceedingly popular for many years, 
some of them — the "Last Supper" after 
Leonardo, engraved by Morghen, for in- 
stance — is much sought for to this day in 
fine impressions. Broadly speaking, while 
these engravings are certainly skillful 
achievements in a highly systematized, 
elaborate technique, their technical perfec- 
tion is aggressive and imparts a formal cold- 
ness, a lifelessness, and a metallic quality, 
which doubtless explains — in part — their 
decline in popular favor during recent years. 
Before leaving the South, we must yet 
cast a glance at an interesting though minor 
manifestation of the graphic arts, the 
chiaroscuro. Repeated allusions have been 
made to the demand for color on the part of 
the general public. In response to this ever- 
present craving for the joy of varied tones, 

56 




< 

03 

21 

I— I 3 

o 

H 



I8f Jp'' 




DIOGENES 
Chiaroscuro woodcut by Ugo da Carpi 



ITALY 

the chiaroscuro takes a step in the direction 
of painting by translating color into several 
graded tones giving the effect of a semi- 
colored wash-drawing. The process was 
used in various ways, in various countries 
and at various times, but the golden era of 
chiaroscuro is the sixteenth century in Italy. 
The example selected, "Diogenes," by Ugo 
da Carpi, is one of the finest of the period. 
It is impossible to render in this mono- 
chrome reproduction the rich glow of super- 
imposed tones of golden and greenish browns, 
which constitute its greatest charm; chia- 
roscuros must be seen themselves to be ap- 
preciated. One can then see what manner 
of success attended the wood-cutter's en- 
deavors, the endless possibilities of variety 
of tones become apparent, also the difficulty 
attendant upon the accurate placing (regis- 
ter) of the paper on the three or more suc- 
cessive blocks printed from, one for each 
tone. A few scattered experiments in Ger- 
many, during the period of extensive pro- 
57 



PRINTS 

duction in northern Italy, and thereafter a 
short-Hved appearance here and there, such 
is — briefly — the history of the chiaroscuro 
woodcut. 



V 

GERMANY 

In former chapters, we have followed the 
origin of woodcut and engraving in Germany, 
to the end of the fifteenth century; we have 
seen woodcut grow from the crude conceits 
of the early craftsman to illustrations of 
distinct artistic merit; we have followed 
engraving from its origin in the goldsmith's 
shop to the expressive beauty of Martin 
Schongauer's plates. Both are to culminate 
during the early sixteenth century. At this 
time Maximilian reigned over the vast Ger- 
man Empire: " Massimiliano pochi dena- 
ri" the Italians called him, because of the 
insufficiency of the imperial resources. Am- 
bitious to perpetuate the glory of his illus- 
trious house, yet quite unable to vie with the 
Pope and Italian princes in the erection of 
sumptuous edifices, the Emperor saw in the 
effective and inexpensive woodcut a means of 
59 



PRINTS 

transmitting to posterity a record of his own 
deeds and adventures and of the virtues of 
his ancestors. The leading German artists 
of the time were employed on designs for 
their imperial patron, chiefly Hans Burgk- 
mair of Augsburg, and Albrecht Diirer of 
Nuremberg. With Diirer we reach the zenith 
of the graphic arts in Germany. He stands, 
a monumental figure, seen from afar, influ- 
encing — not only his German contempora- 
ries, but the artists of Italy and of the Low 
Countries. Diirer was a thoughtful, forceful, 
imaginative leader; he was more — he had 
thought out the resources, the latent possi- 
bilities of engraving and of woodcut, he knew 
their limitations and the manner of presenta- 
tion most adequate for either process. These 
principles of treatment are illustrated in his 
prints, set forth so clearly as to be readily 
understood and applied by other engravers, 
by other designers for woodcut. For this 
reason he has become a teacher for all times. 
His development may be followed through 

60 




APOCALYPSE: THE FOUR HORSEMEN 
Woodcut. Albreclit Dlirer 



GERMANY 

many stages, from his early manner, imita- 
tive of fifteenth-century masters, to the pic- 
torial finish and wonderful play of light in 
his grand " St. Jerome in his Study." Italian 
influence is felt in many of his early plates, 
the "Effect of Jealousy," for instance, the 
"Apollo and Diana," or the charming 
"Madonna with the Monkey"; but his 
vigorous individuality was not swayed long 
nor impaired by these Southern charms 
which were soon to overwhelm Northern 
art. Even in the days when young Diirer 
responds with enthusiasm to the power, to 
the passionate energy of Mantegna, his Ger- 
man characteristics are plainly apparent; I 
am thinking of his famous series of illustra- 
tions to the Apocalypse. Take the powerful 
print of the "Four Horsemen," with their 
resistless onward rush, violent action vividly 
expressed, every figure, every detail instinct 
with close scrutiny and conscientious render- 
ing of nature. Then as to technique, see how 
outline and shade-stroke are made to yield 
61 



PRINTS 

their full measure of expressiveness. None of 
the uniform diagonal shading of early Italian 
masters is found in these woodcuts ; nor shall 
we find such summary treatment in Diirer's 
engravings. If we turn to his "Arms with 
the Skull," for instance, we see there no mere 
suggestion of shadow, every line tells. The 
outline swells and accents the form, the 
shading-strokes curve and bend to accent 
the rounding, the modeling of the figure; the 
quality, strength, tonality of the line varies 
with every texture which is to be expressed, 
such as the metal of the helmet, the feath- 
ers on the crest, the cloth, the leather, the 
wood, the hair. The modest means of black 
lines and white paper, which at first had 
seemed barely sufficient for suggestive out- 
line and indications of the rounding of form, 
are now becoming a medium fit for the pres- 
entation of all the infinite phenomena of 
visible nature. From the large, predominant 
figures massed in the immediate foreground 
of early woodcut series like the Apocalypse, 

62 




ARMS WITH THE SKULL 
Albrecht Durer 




LIFE OF THE VIRGIN: REST IN EGYPT 
Woodcut. Albrecht Diirer 



GERMANY 

or the large Passion, Diirer progresses to a 
deepening of the scene in the serene woodcut 
illustrations of the "Life of the Virgin." We 
are led along the pleasant, peaceful paths of 
life, we are spared the anguish and suffering 
of the previous series. In this illustration, 
for instance, we see the Hol}^ Family at rest 
in Egypt; Joseph is working at his trade, 
while the Mother watches her sleeping Babe, 
and angels busy themselves or gambol about 
the Holy group. The scene is laid in a pleas- 
ing German landscape, among low hills, 
which carry out the serenity of the com- 
position. 

The fullness of Durer's powers as an 
engraver is manifested in the three plates 
which typify man's attitude toward life. 
First comes the good, steadfast knight, the 
champion of righteousness, unmindful of his 
weird escort of death and a hellish monster 
as he wends his way through a dark defile to 
his home on a distant sunlit hill. We then 
see despondent, bitter Melancholy, vainly 
63 



PRINTS 

demanding of science the answer to life's 
riddle. Finally, we come to St. Jerome, 
serene in his chosen solitude: a mind re- 
signed, at peace with the world which has 
been left behind. These engravings take a 
very high rank, indeed, in German art. Such 
technique of engraving as that here found 
had never before been even approached: 
broad gleams of sunlight brighten the room, 
striking the walls and floor; in the silvery 
half-light every texture, every substance is 
expressed by differentiations of the graver- 
stroke. Yet with all the infinite detail which 
abounds in the plate, the tonality is so sus- 
tained and detail so discreetly introduced, 
that the general feeling, after all, is one of 
simplicity. 

One other aspect of Durer's genius must 
be introduced, namely, his mastery in por- 
traiture. In the strong face of Cardinal 
Albrecht of Mayence, the keenest observa- 
tion of the man is revealed with means as- 
tonishingly simple. Notice how far from 

64 




ST. JEROME IN HIS STUL>i' 
Albreclit Diirer 



r~->> 



CH^YSOGONi.PBRCARDINA 

>''^C ^f'^^^^i EP^-ELECTOR'L\\PE>PR'lA\AS 
'^ "^ ' • C'. .Aj>A\:xi.HALBER-.^\ARCHh 









B RANDENBVRGENi IS 




\SiC OOVLO^ .SIC^ILLEt GENA^S ♦ «SIO 
: ORAi F£REBAT ^ 
^Anno > ETATI^ 5VE^XXI X^ 

■ /A D :s: r X • 



CARDINAL ALBRECHT OF MAYENCE 
Albrecht Durer 



GERMANY 

extreme depth the shadings have been kept ; 
all in the range of silvery grays, which Diirer 
sought in preference to dark shadows. The 
values in the figure, the arms and the inscrip- 
tion have all received careful consideration 
from this master whose genius was, indeed, 
the faculty of taking infinite pains. 

From this brief glance at the great Nurem- 
berg artist, we must turn now to his North- 
ern contemporary, Lucas van Ley den, like- 
wise a painter-engraver, and a solitary figure 
in the Netherlands at that period. Bred in 
the realistic maxims of the fifteenth century, 
his Northern origin asserts itself in the care- 
ful detail and truthful presentation of na- 
ture, in the characteristic types of his figures. 
Truthful rendering of natural facts — as has 
been mentioned before — is a quality com- 
mon to Northern artists. Diirer, in his fond- 
ness for psychological themes, is in tune with 
the humanists of his time. Ley den, though 
strongly influenced by the German master, 
has not Durer's depth of thought. He does 
65 



PRINTS 

not infuse that deeper meaning into his 
plates. Following the bent of his Germanic 
mind, he reverts to the simple, daily scenes 
of life, and when he undertakes to render 
scenes from other times and from distant 
places, he transforms them into events of his 
own day and his own surroundings. He can 
thus express himself with the directness of 
an eye-witness, and therein lies much of the 
charm of his work, which was much appre- 
ciated even in Italy. One of the few large 
plates of Lucas van Leyden will illustrate his 
artistic and technical powers. The "Adora- 
tion of the Magi," broad in composition, 
sober and harmonious in the handling of the 
graver, typically Northern in feeling, is per- 
haps the finest of his achievements. Later in 
life his restless, searching mind was diverted 
to the allurements of Italian grace of form, 
and gave itself up to its influence without 
reserve. 

A great wave of enthusiasm for Southern 
ideals swept over the entire North about the 

66 



GERMANY 

third decade of the sixteenth century. It 
estabhshed the supremacy of Itahan stand- 
ards of artistic merit, which — as we know 
— were not such as to give new hfe to the 
graphic arts. This wave of Itahan influence 
was felt in the immediate following of Diirer, 
in that group of painter-engravers, known 
to us as the "little masters," though little 
only in the size of their plates. A high stand- 
ard of technique is common to them all, 
with variations in their perfection. Varia- 
tions there are also in the measure in which 
they yielded to Italian influence. Their 
graver was devoted to the rendering of a 
great variety of subjects; Northern charac- 
teristics are still evident in their portraits, 
in their Biblical scenes with German types of 
figures. Northern customs are depicted with 
Northern minuteness; on the other hand, the 
study of Southern models has developed in 
these Northern engravers an appreciation 
of the beauty of the nude, which is freely 
introduced in mythological, allegorical, Bib- 

67 



PRINTS 

lical, and other subjects, and very skill- 
fully handled. We are apt not to appreciate 
the gravity of this Italian invasion, of this 
Southern supremacy in Northern art. Ideal 
perfection of form was a new language to the 
Germanic artists, accustomed to the real- 
istic, faithful rendering of nature as they saw 
it, with all its facts, perfections, and imper- 
fections alike. The change often meant that 
the artist forgot his native tongue, if the 
expression may be used — a harsh tongue, if 
you will, but sincere and expressive; in re- 
turn he acquired, often but imperfectly, a 
new language in which his expression needs 
must be imitative, not original. 

The true Northern spirit still greets us 
in the woodcut productions of that period. 
Woodcut was used for subjects of wide pop- 
ular interest, for Passion series, portraits, 
religious subjects, and all manner of illus- 
tration. Diirer had used the relief proc- 
ess extensively for such purposes, likewise 
Burgkmair, who was, with Diirer, one of the 

68 




Z 1-1 

OS 



GERMANY 

foremost designers for the extensive publica- 
tions of Emperor Maximilian, Lucas Cran- 
ach elected the strong, emphatic woodcut 
for much of his graphic work, prominently 
employed in the service of the Reformation. 
An example of his work, this tournament 
scene, is a reminder of the times in which he 
dwelt, and an illustration of his vivid power 
of presentation, typically Northern with its 
crowded figures. 

Other masters there are in plenty, whom 
we must neglect, as we shift our abode to 
Basle for a moment. We find ourselves here, 
about 1516, in the midst of a thriving pub- 
lishing center. Enterprising printers seek to 
secure pleasing decorations and illustrations 
for their scientific and literary output. They 
look for a good draughtsman to design some 
tasteful headings and end-pieces, borders 
and initials, and are well pleased with the 
samples submitted by a young newcomer, by 
name Hans Holbein. At first the cutting of 
his designs offers some difficulties, but when 
69 



PRINTS 

the right man has appeared, when Hans 
Lutzelburger has joined his skill to the 
genius of Holbein, their joint productions 
attain a peerless mastery. High summits in 
art always invite comparison; this is true of 
Durer and Holbein, even though these two 
great German masters are so widely different 
from each other. Durer is nowhere greater 
than in engraving, while Holbein excels in 
painting; both are masters of woodcut. 
Diirer, with his scholarly, analytical nature, 
ponders over the deep, essential meaning 
which underlies the multitude of his obser- 
vations, and sets down his conclusions in 
types broadly generalized. His St. Jerome 
— to quote but one instance — is not so 
much a specific old man in his study as the 
expression of a mental attitude common to 
mankind generally. Holbein is more a man of 
impulse, quick to express himself in a direct 
manner full of life. He is more sensual, and 
has much feeling for pleasing form and a 
beautiful flow of lines. He accents the event 

70 



GERMANY 

itself more strongly than Dlirer, who is given 
to express himself rather by association of 
ideas. It is a significant fact that Dlirer 
chooses his subjects with preference from the 
figurative New Testament, with its parables, 
while Holbein prefers to illustrate the Old 
Testament, a book of essentially historical 
character. Every scene is plainly told and 
intensely human in Holbein's Biblical illus- 
trations, as well as in that masterpiece of his, 
the " Dance of Death." We cannot but mar- 
vel at the feeling of spaciousness in these 
small prints, at the lifelike action of the 
expressive little figures, at the perfect har- 
mony of these figures and their surround- 
ings. 

At the time of Dlirer's death, in 1528, the 
long period of warfare, devastation, and 
misery had begun which was to end only 
after the Thirty Years' War. Emperor Max- 
imilian was dead; Charles V had broken the 
power of France in Italy; his mercenaries 
had sacked Rome, and incidentally ruined 

71 



PRINTS 

Marcantonio, the Italian engraver. His 
promising school was dispersed. It was a 
period of decline, both north and south of 
the Alps. 

From that time on, the successive influ- 
ences of Italy, of the Netherlands, and of 
France sway the character of German art. A 
clever superficiality develops, which adapts 
itself to the characteristics of the art in vogue. 
Etching, the sister art of engraving, cannot 
boast any signal triumphs during this period 
of German art, although, from the early days 
of its adoption, it was used to a considerable 
extent by the Hopfer family. Diirer experi- 
mented with the process, but soon returned 
to engraving. The greatest German etcher 
of the following (seventeenth) century, 
Wenzel Hollar, followed the Earl of Arundel 
to England, there to build up his fame. 



VI 

THE NETHERLANDS 

The seventeenth century, which witnesses 
German art in its dechne, brings about a 
wonderful flowering of art in the neighboring 
Netherlands. This country had passed from 
Burgundian rule to the Hapsburg dynasty. 
With the advent of Charles V, it passed 
under the rule of Spain. The master hand 
of that emperor had been able to curb the 
feeling of unrest and ferment caused by the 
lieformation, but the oppressive measures 
of his somber successor, Philip II, drove the 
Dutch and Flemish people to rise in arms for 
the defense of their liberties. A long, cruel 
war of emancipation ensued, and near its 
close there came a parting of the ways which 
bears directly upon our subject. In 1598, the 
division occurred ; the southern — Flemish 
— provinces remained true to the House 
of Hapsburg, true also to the long-estab- 
73 



PRINTS 

lished Catholic faith. Consequently their 
art retained its strongly religious element, 
tinged with Italian traditions. The great 
exponent of this Flemish trend of art is 
Peter Paul Rubens, of whom more pres- 
ently. 

The northern (Dutch) provinces adopted 
the teachings of Calvin, and soon established 
their independence. Their churches were 
bare of any pictorial adornment; their art 
was forced, therefore, to develop mainly in 
the sphere of home life. If we term Ru- 
bens the leader of Flemish art, Rembrandt 
stands for the highest development of 
Dutch art. Between these two leaders lies 
a broad field with many blending, interweav- 
ing influences, many local characteristics, 
in this magnificent epoch. The only way 
to approach the subject in a few brief sen- 
tences is by considering as one vast unit the 
whole period of seventeenth-century art in 
the Netherlands, both Dutch and Flemish. 

It will ever be a matter for surprise that 
74 




Orpcns cfjujiciH cxynjltt ijioitn (fclt^us ihr, 
Jia-nt/^rkus Hccta ympt- ct ante maitii. 
^^Tuiii- tiu-ratJvntiieJJi'roiti i]mhii mauv: 

"'J^lurt/iia mnic^aciati niijnjiviifii amt ■ 



JOHANNES ZURENUS 
Hendrik Goltzius 



THE NETHERLANDS 

this small country should burst into the 
full glory of a great period of art at a time 
of incessant, strenuous warfare. First the 
long, exhausting war with Spain; then a 
war with England; finally, a war with the 
powerful France of Louis XIV. Within the 
time limit of these wars lie the dates of 
the birth of Rubens, and of Rembrandt's 
death, marking the cidniination of art in 
the Netherlands. If we look back to earlier 
days of Dutch engraving, we discern the 
isolated figure of Lucas van Ley den, the only 
painter-engraver of fame in the Netherlands 
at the time of Dilrer. After his death no 
master of similar merit arose to carry on 
his traditions. Engraving, deprived of emi- 
nent guidance, sank to levels of commer- 
cialism. Saints' pictures being always in 
great demand throughout Christendom, en- 
gravers in the Netherlands devoted their 
energies largely to this field, and that coun- 
try became the center of production of 
all kinds of engraved devotional prints. 
75 



PRINTS 

Trained by daily routine practice, the en- 
gravers acquired a high degree of dexterity 
in handling the graver. Whole families of 
engravers — the Wierix, the Van de Passe, 
the Galle — devoted themselves to this 
work, which assumed the character of a 
manufacture of engravings. One did the 
figures, another the backgrounds, another 
again the draperies, ornaments, etc., accord- 
ing to their respective aptitudes. Toward 
the close of the sixteenth centurj^ this 
Northern skill in handling the graver was 
communicated to Italy, and there mastered 
by Agostino Carracci. In Holland manual 
dexterity was carried to its height by a vir- 
tuoso of the graver, Hendrik Goltzius. His 
"Pieta" in the manner of Dlirer, and a se- 
ries of large plates, in which he exhibits, in 
turn, characteristics of this and other noted 
artists, reveal his technical mastery. They 
disclose also his power of close observa- 
tion, which appears to best advantage in 
portraits such as that of Zurenus. Excellent 

76 




PETER PAUL RUBENS 
Paul Pontius 



THE NETHERLANDS 

judgment is shown in the selection of Hne; 
the effect is sparkUng, brilHant; in fact, this 
very brilHancy, this cleverness in the telling 
use of the line, becomes an end to be striven 
for, and no longer the means only employed 
to express an artistic thought. This worship 
of technique carries Goltzius and his numer- 
ous followers to extremes of mannerism, 
where we must leave them and turn to the 
engravers grouped around Rubens. 

Peter Paul Rubens perceived the advan- 
tages which prints might bring to a painter 
by the propagation of his compositions. So 
he surrounded himself with experienced 
engravers, whom he guided by suggestions 
and corrections. How well they interpreted 
the work of the master may be seen in Ru- 
bens's portrait of himself, engraved by Paul 
Pontius, one of the noted engravers of this 
group. A stride toward the expression of 
color is to be perceived in this plate* great 
variety in the rendering of cloth, hair, lace, 
the face, the background and frame. The 
77 



PRINTS 

problem of expressing color, as well as 
form, now enters more and more into the 
sphere of engraving; a problem much more 
difficult than would appear at first thought. 
Here is the task which faces the engraver: 
he must keep true to the original he repro- 
duces, true in form, true in color values, by 
a judicious gradation of tone. At the same 
time he must strive to make his plate inter- 
esting, spirited, brilliant, and apparently 
easy and free in handling. Singly these qual- 
ities are not uncommon, but that engraver is 
far from common, who, having the power to 
do such brilliant work, has moreover the wish 
and ability to efface himself, and let only the 
artist speak, whose work he interprets. It is 
a claim to distinction for many engravers of 
the Rubens group that they came so near to 
solving this problem. Whether or not Ru- 
bens made use of the etching-needle himself 
remains a matter for speculation; there is 
no doubt, however, that his great pupil — 
Anthony van Dyck — used etching very 

78 




JAN BRUEGHEL 
Anthony van Dyck 




GELLIUS DE BOUMA 
Cornel Visscher 



THE NETHERLANDS 

effectively, as will be seen by this portrait 
taken from his famous "Iconography." ^ 
The likeness is sketched with his character- 
istic sureness and ease upon the grounded 
copper plate. The biting was doubtless left 
to the engraver who was to finish the plate. 
Neither Rubens nor Van Dyck seems to have 
been interested in etching or engraving as 
such ; to them the graphic arts were excellent 
means of reproduction, nothing more. 

You will notice that the engraver has 
begun his work in fine, parallel lines, close 
together, in the upper corner of the plate. 
The print thus presents one aspect of the use 
— conjointly — of etching and engraving, 
which had then come into universal use. 
Another example of the combined use of the 
two processes, blended into a rich harmoni- 
ous tone, is the portrait of Gellius de Bouma 
by one of the great portrait engravers of 
the seventeenth century. Cornel Visscher, an 

1 A large series of portraits after Van Dyck, engraved 
by a number of the Rubens engravers. 

79 



PRINTS 

artist who tolerated no hard-and-fast system 
in the graphic arts. Here is a vigorous, well- 
modeled figure, broadly treated in so inter- 
esting a manner that the means of expression 
are quite forgotten in the enjoyment of the 
effect achieved. A new element now enters 
the sphere of our interest: the problem of 
light, bright or subdued, in infinite grada- 
tions. Interiors with the light focused on 
one spot; night effects partially brightened 
by a torch or lantern, or by a fire, all else 
enfolded in darkness. The pioneer in this 
clair-obscur manner is the painter, Adam 
Elzheimer, but no one made more effec- 
tive use of this play of light and shade in 
the graphic arts than Rembrandt. Take 
the "Adoration of the Shepherds" as an 
instance, with the feeble light of the lantern 
and the rich tone of surrounding darkness, 
with indistinct forms of figures and objects 
half seen and half guessed, which gain shape 
as we look more closely. In the famous plate 
known as the "Three Trees" our attention 

80 



THE NETHERLANDS 

is at first attracted by the vast expanse 
of threatening sky, with its lofty thunder- 
clouds, and the immense plains, with dikes 
and level fields stretching to the distant 
horizon. x\s we look at the picture, de- 
tails appear, — the team behind the trees, 
the people in the fields, the couple in the 
bushes. They are overlooked, then seen, just 
as they would be in nature; they keep their 
subordinate places, and do not intrude and 
disturb the general effect of grand simplicity. 
Color is so well suggested by differentiations 
in handling and varying intensities of tone 
that one almost forgets the simple lilack 
and white presentation of the scene. As an 
example of Rembrandt's mastery in etching 
applied to portraiture, no better print could 
be chosen than the "Janus Lutma," espe- 
cially if we can see it in the glorious richness 
exhibited by the first state of the plate. All 
the resources of the process are in evidence 
here, — they are seen in the subtle modeling, 
in the insensible gradations of tone, in the 
81 



PRINTS 

brilliancy of the accents, in the depth of the 
velvety shadows. It will be readily under- 
stood that such delicate, almost breathlike 
differences in shading, cannot long withstand 
the wear and strain to which they are sub- 
jected at each successive impression. Every 
print taken from the plate means rubbing 
the ink into every one of these delicate in- 
cisions in the copper; then comes the severe 
pressure as the plate passes through the 
press. A soft metal like copper soon shows 
the effect of these wearing influences: the 
delicate ridges of the dry-point work flatten 
down, and the edges of the etched lines be- 
come blunt. After a very little while the 
difference in the impressions grows more and 
more noticeable; then comes the touching- 
up of the plate, in an endeavor to restore 
— in a measure — its former brilliancy and 
freshness; naturally this modifies the ap- 
pearance of the print to some extent. The 
first of these retouches are probably made 
by the artist himself; later on, as the plate 

82 




JANUS LUTMA 
Rembrandt 




■r'W 111' ''^i*^'^ 

M (I JitiM.iiriiiiiKiiw 



TOBIT BLIND 

Reiubrandt 



THE NETHERLANDS 

again wears, it may have passed into the 
hands of dealers, who, in turn, have the 
copper touched up repeatedly for further 
printing. Thus you may have a Rembrandt 
print, from the original copper, yet without 
even the echo of that which the great mas- 
ter had originally expressed. This applies 
not to Rembrandt etchings only, l)ut to 
prints in general; whatever the print, the 
first essential must always be to secure a 
good impression of it. 

We cannot leave Rembrandt without 
glancing at one of those sketchy little prints 
which, upon examination, reveal to us his 
big-hearted knowledge of human nature and 
his keen powers of observation. Here is the 
old Tobit, a groping figure, eloquently de- 
scribed by means of a few telling lines in its 
pathetic, helpless blindness, the little dog 
acting as a guide. 

The influence of Rembrandt on his con- 
temporaries and on subsequent artistic pro- 
ductions is very great indeed; none of his 
83 



PRINTS 

followers, gifted though they be, approach 
him in excellence and universality. To the 
Northern mind there is a great fascination 
in presentments of the life of the common 
people. Brouwer, Brueghel, Teniers are 
among those partial to this theme, and each 
of them has done some experimental work 
with the etching - needle. In Germany we 
find plates relating to peasant life among 
the prints of Dlirer, Holbein, and the little 
masters. Rembrandt has devoted a good 
many plates to character sketches of beg- 
gars and of peasants. Among the other 
Dutch etchers the greatest interpreter of 
the peasantry is without doubt x\driaen 
van Ostade. He shows them to us at their 
homes, or at the tavern, smoking, drinking, 
dancing, merrymaking. The gay, sunny side 
of their existence is revealed in his fifty etch- 
ings, which display a thorough command of 
the medium employed. In the scene which 
has been chosen as an example of his powers, 
we discern the sympathetic interest in coun- 

84 




t 


13 




S- 




^ 


H 


^ 






IS 




W 


1-5 


H 





THE NETHERLANDS 

try life which characterizes all his work. 
Jacob Ruysdael, the landscape painter, has 
sketched on the copper a number of charac- 
teristic subjects, none, perhaps, finer than 
this clump of sturdy, gnarled oaks, with 
roots bathed in a shallow pool. The distant 
trees are flooded with sunlight, while the 
foreground is toned down to a lower key. 
All this is done in the simplest possible man- 
ner. The whole plate speaks of close, care- 
ful observation, and truthfully, suggestively 
expresses actual nature. Another notable 
feature is the subordination of the figures. 
Here, as in Rembrandt's "Three Trees," 
the figures are quite subordinate; the quiet 
beauty of the scenery presented is the main 
theme of the artist's message. Passing by 
numerous other delightful landscape etch- 
ers, Everdingen, Waterloo, Saftleven, like- 
wise the gifted etcher of animals, Paul 
Potter, we must turn now to Nicolas Berg- 
hem, who combines animal life with land- 
scape. In his masterpiece, known as the 
85 



PRINTS 

"Diamond," there is apparent the close 
study of nature, characteristic of the period, 
also much clever mise en scene, but as we 
examine the plate more closely, we realize 
the admixture of Italian inspiration. The 
vigor of home influences is weakening, and 
the art of the South again asserts itself as we 
approach the eighteenth century. The same 
Southern influence pervades the landscapes 
of Jan Both; they are very pleasing, tech- 
nically fine, but the evil which creeps into 
Dutch art is quite evident here. The ideal 
landscape of Titian, Poussin, and Claude 
Lorrain gradually warps the former frank 
realistic rendering of nature; elegance, hol- 
low display gradually take the place of the 
good, wholesome naturalness of Dutch art. 
With the advent of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, painting and the graphic arts decline 
to levels which we may pass by in this rapid 
survey. 




5 ^ 






VII 

FRANCE 

Having considered the fate of the graphic 
arts in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, 
our attention must dwell for a while on de- 
velopments of the printed picture in France. 
In each of the countries above mentioned, 
we have witnessed a definite era of excel- 
lence in the sphere of prints; in Germany 
and in Italy, this zenith was reached in the 
late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. 
In the Netherlands, as we have just seen, the 
great awakening took place fully a century 
later. In this same seventeenth century, 
toward its close, as art declines in the Low 
Countries, French engraving rises to its 
highest perfection. 

We needs must deal briefly with early 
French productions in relief and intaglio 
processes. Woodcut first: some few exam- 
ples of early playing-cards which have sur- 
87 



PRINTS 

vived destruction to these days, prove the 
trade of the card-printer to have flourished 
in France as well as in Germany. Book- 
printing speedily grew to important propor- 
tions; great printing firms were founded in 
Lyons and elsewhere, and carried on an ex- 
tensive trade. Men of artistic originality, 
like Geoff roy Tory, knew how to infuse a 
distinctive character into type and illustra- 
tion of their books; but apart from a few 
choice spirits, artistic France is not con- 
spicuous in these early productions. Not 
only is printing largely carried on by print- 
ers from Germany and Switzerland, but these 
countries likewise furnish a large share of 
the relief - blocks needed for illustration. 
The Holbein "Dance of Death" is a no- 
table instance of this practice. That series 
of wood-blocks had passed to Lyons, and 
there one edition after another was printed 
from the blocks, until they were quite worn 
out. Woodcut never was, in France, the im- 
portant means of artistic expression which 

88 



FRANCE 

we have found it to have been in Germany. 
Its days sped by unheeded. The chief field 
of usefulness of the woodcut, the decoration 
and ilhistration of books and the sphere of 
the devotional print, were invaded by the 
intaglio processes. The woodcut lost ground 
everywhere in the seventeenth century; it 
had practically no share in solving the prob- 
lems set to the graphic arts by the rising 
schools of Dutch, Fleinish, and French paint- 
ers. It sank to mere imitation of the fash- 
ionable book-decorations done in etching or 
engraving. The true, bold language of wood- 
cut, spoken during the sixteenth century, 
finds no counterpart in the seventeenth; we 
must, therefore, turn to engraving, to vindi- 
cate France as a great center of development 
in the graphic arts. 

In the early sixteenth century we meet in 
Jean Duvet an engraver of original merit. 
He adopts in his work the style of certain 
early Italian engravers. In his composi- 
tions he harks back to Durer's imaginative 
89 



PRINTS 

genius. A little later Etienne Delaune ap- 
pears, affecting the elongated figures of 
contemporary Italians, while in his graver- 
work one discerns a resemblance with the 
manner of the German "little masters." In 
etching a vital impulse is given to French 
work about the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
tury. At that time Francis I called Ital- 
ian artists to France for the decoration of 
his castle of Fontainebleau. Many of these 
Italian artists — Primaticcio, Fantuzzi, and 
others — made use of etching occasionally in 
a hasty, sketchy style. The sensuous charm 
of their lithe, long figures appealed to French 
taste, and elicited a response in the plates 
etched by Jean CousiU; for instance. In 
all this early production we feel the domi- 
nating influence of Italian art, with an occa- 
sional echo of German thought or German 
technicjue. France seeks her own language 
in the graphic arts, and timidly ventures 
forth in an original manner of expression. 
This diffidence is of brief duration, however, 

90 




>— J CO 



FRANCE 

and by the end of the seventeenth century 
we find her a leader in engraving, and by no 
means in engraving only. As we enter upon 
this broad development, we must cast a 
glance on two personalities of distinct origi- 
nality, namely, Jacques Callot and Claude 
Lorrain. Both are natives of Lorraine, both 
are schooled in the art centers of Italy. Cal- 
lot, endowed with an impulsive, expressive 
style, full of personal qualities, vividly 
describes in his plates the habits, customs, 
pleasures, the life, in short, of France and 
Italy at his time. He peoples his plates with 
multitudes of minute figures, with well- 
accented gestures. These little figures are 
written down, as it were, with consummate 
skill; they are expressive in their concerted 
action; in their grouping, these peasants, 
soldiers, beggars, cripples, actors, courtiers, 
as they troop across the scene, unfold a 
bird's-eye view of the world in the midst of 
which the artist lived. From the vast num- 
ber of his prints, let us select for illustration 
91 



PRINTS 

one of his views of old Paris, with the Tour 
de Nesle prominent in the foreground. In 
his hundreds of plates we see the miseries 
of warfare described as well as the gayety 
of public festivities and the pomp of cere- 
monies of state which he witnessed in Flor- 
ence. Claude Lorrain, an originator and 
gifted exponent of landscape, has occasion- 
ally taken up the etching-needle, largely in 
an experimental spirit, modifying his tech- 
nique at different times, and showing him- 
self, like other noted painters and occasional 
etchers, infinitely more clever in the design 
than in the actual etching. The plate chosen 
for illustration, called "Le Bouvier," is the 
most famous of his prints; in it we perceive 
(provided we see a fine early impression) the 
rich tonal effect, the sense of airiness, of 
space, the delightful composition, the knowl- 
edge of nature's forms and of atmospheric 
aspects, which appear far more markedly 
still in the paintings of this master. 

The new awakening in French engraving 
92 



FRANCE 

in the seventeenth century is especially no- 
table in portrait engraving. Germany has 
lost its leadership in the graphic arts; the 
great days of Italian engraving are likewise 
over, though Italy continues a source of in- 
spiration to painters of all nations, she can 
add no vital, helpful impulse to engraving. 
Such life-giving influences could only come 
from the Netherlands, where the great tide 
of art is now at its height, where painting 
and the graphic arts have unfolded all their 
glory. Here the etcher's and the engraver's 
technique, very highly developed, is grow- 
ing yet in perfection. What could be more 
natural than the powerful stimulus exerted 
by such excellence on French engraving.^ Its 
greatest triumphs coincide, in point of time, 
with the period of political supremacy of 
France during the reign of Louis XIV. The 
"Grand Monarque" infused gTandeur into 
all the arts. The stately graver is the me- 
dium aptly chosen for numerous portraits 
of the "roi soleil" himself. In this period of 
93 



PRINTS 

teeming fertility in portraiture, we find an 
abundance of likenesses of statesmen, gen- 
erals, princes, nobles, of leaders in art, sci- 
ence, literature, and of distinguished church- 
men. One cannot look through these prints 
without being struck by the prevalence, 
among them, of an element of stately aloof- 
ness which removes these men and women 
from the everyday sphere of life. They lack 
some of the freedom, some of the lifelike 
appearance, which characterize the achieve- 
ments of the Netherlanders. 

In glancing through the ranks of the 
French engravers, we come upon Claude 
Mellan, an artist-engraver of striking origi- 
nality. He departs from the beaten track 
of cross-hatching, and develops a manner of 
shading which relies — for the rendering of 
shadows — solely on the swelling line pecul- 
iar to graver-work. His technique is seen in 
the portrait of the young Due de Guise here 
reproduced. Lines very lightly traced in the 
lighted portions, grow in strength and swell 

94 




DUC DE GUISE 
Claude Mellan 







Jean Morin 



FRANCE 

proportionately to the depth of shadow to 
be expressed. The direction of the Hne and 
its degree of heaviness are the means of 
expression used by Mellan. The difficulties 
inherent in such a technique are evident, 
and it is equally evident that the elimina- 
tion of cross-hatching is a heavy handicap 
to an engraver. Naturally enough, Claude 
Mellan did not have any following to speak 
of among engravers. 

From this peculiar but fascinating artist, 
we pass on to another engraver of marked 
individuality, Jean Morin, an excellent 
technician who studied with profit the 
works of his Dutch and Flemish predeces- 
sors. He combines etching and graver-work 
in his plates, modeling the flesh exquisitely 
by means of minute stipple-like touches. 
Among his best productions the portrait of 
Antoine Vitre stands forth as a plate of great 
effectiveness and power, with rich, dark 
tones of shadow and brilliant lights. 

The school of Philippe de Champaigne, 
95 



PRINTS 

which disciphned the powers of Morin, 
set upon his way the greatest of French 
portrait engravers, Robert Nanteuil. A 
finished draughtsman, known by his pastel 
portraits, and an engraver who carried the 
technique of the graver to perfection; he 
knows how to blend delicacy and strength 
in plates like this portrait of Pompone de 
Bellievre. The longer one studies such a 
print, the more one realizes the unerring 
faculty of this master in the selection of 
line ; each stroke fits the substance which it 
is meant to express. The eloquence of the 
graver is a matter too subtle for language, 
and far transcends the possibilities of re- 
production, however skillful; a half -hour 
spent with some good, early impressions of 
Nanteuil prints will prove the truth of this 
assertion. Everything is expressed there, 
and wondrously well expressed, yet one is 
quite unconscious of any display of virtu- 
osity. Nanteuil was too great an artist not 
to subordinate the beauty of line, the mar- 

96 




POMPONE DE BELLlfeVRE 
Robert Nanteuil 




PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE 
G6rard Edeliiick 



FRANCE 

velous finish of elaborate detail, to the main 
consideration, namely, the beauty of a well- 
balanced, well-harmonized ensemble. He was 
an artist-engraver in the true sense of the 
word, since many of his finest plates have 
been drawn from life, as well as engraved 
by him. 

It is usual, in reviews of this period of 
art, to find the name of the noted Fleming, 
Gerard Edelinck, mentioned side by side 
with Nanteuil. With a technique akin to 
that of the Rubens school, in long, easy 
strokes, he models his figures and his dra- 
peries, and while he lacks the creative origi- 
nality of Nanteuil, working always after the 
designs of other artists, his range of subjects 
is far more extended. In the striking likeness 
of the painter Philippe de Champaigne, he 
has left us a splendid example of his powers. 
His plate after the "Madonna of Francis I," 
by Raphael, is a model of interpretative 
engraving, and when he undertakes to repro- 
duce the canvases of Lebrun, he produces 
97 



PRINTS 

prints admittedly more attractive and bril- 
liant than the originals. 

Another man whom we cannot afford to 
omit from even this hasty enumeration is 
Antoine Masson, were it only for that su- 
perb "gray -haired man," the portrait of 
Guillaume de Brisacier, brilliant, powerful, 
revealing an absolute mastery of the graver. 
The fact is, that we are drifting now toward 
an ever-growing worship of technique, at 
the expense of higher issues, artistically. 
Many names claim our notice, as we con- 
tinue our survey, and a few will not be 
denied, — Gerard Audran, with his great 
series of the "Triumphs of Alexander," a 
series, which, for breadth and beauty of 
treatment, assures him a place among the 
leaders, near Edelinck. 

As we glance at portrait engraving far- 
ther afield, there is at least one name, among 
the notables of the eighteenth century, 
which demands recognition here: Pierre Im- 
bert Drevet, a member of that well-known 

98 




BUSSIET 
Pierre Imbert Drevet 



FRANCE 

family of engravers. Perhaps his greatest 
title to fame is the portrait — here shown — 
of Jacques Benigne Bossuet, the prelate, 
writer, and orator. Many regard this plate 
as the greatest engraving of the century. 
In a manner typical of those pomp - loving 
times, the eminent churchman is repre- 
sented amidst columns and sweeping dra- 
peries. Here, indeed, we have the last word 
of technical resourcefulness in expanses of 
gorgeous silks and delicate laces, and many 
other textures and substances. If one should 
feel that all this elaboration of the setting 
distracts the attention from the portrait 
itself, he must blame the epoch and the 
painter whose design the engraver needs 
must follow. 

Now the reign of Louis XIV is over, and 
we come to the Regency, and to Louis XV. 
Sensitive art, always the expression of the 
prevailing attitude of mind, shifts to that 
well-known sphere of light-hearted, trifling, 
idyllic, galant subjects, a sphere which we 

99 



PRINTS 

naturally connect with Watteau and Lan- 
cret, with Boucher and Greuze: subjects of 
which the illustration "Champs Elysees," 
after Watteau, by Tardieu, is a fairly typical 
example. Playful shepherd scenes abound, 
dainty figures masquerading as housekeep- 
ers, school-teachers, laundresses; or else we 
have glimpses of the intimacy of the boudoir 
and chamber with sensuous allusions more 
or less veiled. It is clear that such scenes 
required a medium other than the serious, 
dignified form of engraving, which we have 
seen heretofore. Such light, gay, piquant 
scenes demanded a freer medium of expres- 
sion; also they required the merry touch of 
light, joyous coloring. 

In response to these demands, (xilles 
Demarteau perfected a process admirably 
suited to rendering the effect of sketchy 
crayon drawing. Leprince devised the proc- 
ess known as "aquatint," by means of 
which the washes of water - color or sepia 
might be closely imitated upon the copper. 
100 




^ .28 
« "2 



u 12; 



FRANCE 

Both these media came into frequent use, 
and often a brown ink was used in the print- 
ing, being deemed more appropriate to the 
subjects than the usual black, or the copper 
plate was painted with colors for each im- 
pression, a lengthy and delicate operation, 
and these color - prints — not to be con- 
founded with prints colored by hand — 
are prized by many amateurs. A word 
here on these color-prints : LeBlon evolved 
a cumbersome method of three-color print- 
ing, engraving one plate for each color; 
often a fourth plate was added, as a foun- 
dation for the other three. The other 
method, mentioned above, was generally 
adopted, (juite a number of engravers devot- 
ing themselves to this color-work. 

Now again temptation spreads out a 
world of enticing themes for discussion, 
which we must pass by: ornaments, elabo- 
rate decorations of theses, emblems, armorial 
designs, calendars. Even the teeming field 
of book decoration must not keep us long, 
101 



PRINTS 

entrancing though it be as a field for special- 
izing study. It has already been remarked 
that in this field, formerly held by woodcut, 
the intaglio processes had assumed a monop- 
oly. Artists of great repute were called upon 
for designs to ornament the elegant volumes 
oft'ered to literary amateurs. The character 
of the illustration and ornamentation was 
dictated, not so much by the contents of the 
books as by the predilections of the buying 
public. A very high degree of technical effi- 
ciency prevailed among the engravers who 
busied themselves with illustrations for liter- 
ary productions ; they entered so thoroughly 
into the spirit of the designs that their own 
individual characteristics are hard to discern 
in the mass of light, dainty embellishments 
of the printed page. The fine harmony 
which blends together type and ornamenta- 
tion in the books of that period, would be 
well worth imitation in our own advanced 
days. The subjects are amorous for the most 
part, as well befits a time when Venus ruled 
102 



FRANCE 

in French society. If you glance through the 
ilkistrated editions of the "Fables," or the 
"Baisers " of Dorat, the "Temple de Guide" 
of Montesquieu, the "Henriade" of Vol- 
taire, the "Contes nouveaux" of Marmon- 
tel, or the "Chansons" of Delaborde, you 
will find there the best efforts of such masters 
of illustration as Eisen, Choffard, Gravelot, 
Moreau, and others, who struck the note 
demanded by the social elite of their day. 
They idealize a hollow, shamming society, 
which they carry into fairyland by an art 
true in its rendering of a play-acting world. 
The dimpled, rosy Venus, the shepherdess of 
well-rounded, shapely figure, — these ideals 
of beauty are not Greek, nor of the great 
Renaissance period. Such divinities are 
found in Versailles gardens ; their proto- 
types are Jeanne Dubarry and her like, 
the ladies of the court, the beauties of the 
stage; and for this reason French art of 
the eighteenth century is genuine and true, 
because it does not seek its ideals in the 
103 



PRINTS 

dim past, but chooses them in contempo- 
rary Hfe. 

As we follow engraving, it declines from a 
spontaneous exercise of the thinking, artistic 
mind into drudgerj^ of systematized routine. 
Engraving becomes petrified into a thing 
of tradition, with elaborate systems of lines 
and dots, to be dutifully acquired during 
long years of apprenticeship. Originality is 
frowned down by rigid precept, selection is 
made subservient to accepted prescription. 
In this so-called "classical" style of engrav- 
ing, Georg Wille moves at ease, among the 
most perplexing technical intricacies. A 
virtuoso, and a purist, Wille deems the burin 
the one and only admissible tool of an en- 
graver. The careful detail, the minutely 
finished paintings of Gerard Dou, Mieris, or 
Netscher give play to his powers. The plate 
reproduced here is the famous " Satin Gown " 
after Terborch, so called because of the won- 
derful rendering of the girl's dress, with its 
silvery sheen and glossy shadows. The 
104 




INSTRUCTION PATERNELLE (The "Satin Gown") 
Georg Wille 



FRANCE 

lighting of the scene, the modehng of forms, 
the translation of color-values into terms of 
black and white, have all received careful 
consideration, nor do we feel in the work of 
this leader the cold metallic hardness and 
monotony which often wearies in the im- 
mense output of the classical engravers. The 
names of Bervic, excellent but slow and 
excessively systematic, Boucher Desnoyers, 
the brilliant technician, come to mind among 
Frenchmen. Italy, however, became the 
real home of classical engraving, and names 
such as Longhi, Raphael Morghen, Toschi, 
with their large plates, chiefly dealing with 
religious subjects, must be familiar to any 
amateur of prints. Their fame, the great 
favor which they enjoyed with the art- 
loving public for a while, brought pupils 
from all parts of Europe to these Italian 
leaders. 

In France the triumphs which painter- 
etching achieved in the Netherlands had 
but a faint echo: C allot and Claude Lorrain 
105 



PRINTS 

have already been mentioned. Painters like 
Lebrun or Largilliere left the graphic arts 
to the engravers; they viewed their skillful 
translations of painting into black and white 
as the work of colleagues, not craftsmen. 
We have noted the influence of Watteau on 
the "etcher-engravers"; he himself handled 
the etching-point at times, in a few sketchy 
plates; Boucher, Fragonard, and others 
dabbled in etching a little, nothing more. 
Jean Jacques de Boissieu and Jean Pierre 
Norblin, the latter an enthusiastic student 
of Rembrandt's perplexing technique, should 
be mentioned as leading exponents of etch- 
ing before the great nineteenth-century re- 
vival to which we shall presently turn. Now 
we must leave France, with the classical 
engravers at the helm, their formula spread- 
ing far and wide and with the vignettists 
busy on their portrayal of French society at 
the end of the ancien regime. As Watteau 
had shown us the customs of the grand- 
fathers, at the beginning of the century, so 
106 




PLATE FROM THE CAPRICHOS 
Francisco Goya 



FRANCE 

Saint -Aubin, Eisen, Moreaii, and other 
clever artists show us the Hfe of the grand- 
children: a society bound up in the pursuit 
of pleasure, blindly rushing on toward exile 
or the guillotine of the French Revolution. 
Before proceeding to English prints, let us 
glance at the one prominent figure in Span- 
ish etching: Francisco Goya. A painter- 
etcher of intense feeling, fiery, impulsive, he 
feels acutely the evils under which his coun- 
try is groaning. In an art largely allusive 
and bitterly satirical, he conjures before us 
an abyss of human wretchedness, greed, and 
misrule in those strange "Caprichos" from 
which an illustration has been selected. In 
other series he shows with the same graphic 
power the hazards of the bull - fight, and 
again the fearful consequences of warfare. 
Filled with his thought, he compels the cop- 
per to express the intensity of his concep- 
tion. His medium is whatever will convey 
the message, usually an etched outline, 
modeled into with aquatint in a bold 
107 



PRINTS 

sketchy manner. His few, rare lithographs 
have the same powerful characteristics, and 
it is this energy of expression which makes 
his prints distinctive and desirable. 



VIII 

ENGLAND 

In point of time England is last, among 
European countries, in bringing forth any 
important manifestation in the realm of 
prints. During the early centuries of engrav- 
ing the artistic demands of the country were 
supplied by foreigners. In the seventeenth 
century Wenzel Hollar accompanied the 
Earl of Arundel to England, and the name of 
this prolific etcher is, without a doubt, the 
most important for that period. Among his 
2750 plates are landscapes, views, portraits, 
plates of costumes and events of the day, 
allegories, and what-not: all done with the 
skill of the practiced etcher, though not 
exalted by the master -touch of genius. 
Other foreign-born engravers are not lack- 
ing; among native Britons, Faithorne, Rob- 
ert White, and George Vertue are the most 
noted. A portrait by William Faithorne 
109 



PRINTS 

gives an idea of early English work. It can- 
not offer anything new, relying as it does on 
the art of the Continent for every artistic 
impnlse; imitative, not yet creative. Even 
well-known men of the eighteenth century 
— Robert Strange, William Sharp, and 
William Woollett, with his large ideal land- 
scapes — hark back to the teachings of the 
Continent and follow in the beaten track. 
One personality stands out prominently in 
this period, a man with a message delivered 
by means of his prints, the painter-engraver 
William Hogarth, who, like Goya, uses the 
needle and graver as a medium for a power- 
ful crusade against the social evils of his day. 
These he castigates with biting satire and 
forceful preachment. His might be called a 
literary art, with tlie stress laid on the moral 
theme, not on technical perfection. 

Among the foreign talent Francesco Bar- 

tolozzi is preeminent as a stipple engraver 

in England. He is the foremost interpreter 

of the dainty compositions of Angelica 

110 







GVf'^:i7,.,/.,',..,'/T:^g 



, (h ^^diLiurn^^ 



CATHARINE OF BRAGANZA 
William Faithome 




THE HON. MISS BINGHAM 
Francesco Bartolozzi 



ENGLAND 

Kauffmann and of Cipriani. Our illustra- 
tion, "The Hon. Miss Bingham," after Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, shows the Italian engraver 
at his best. The whole plate is a mass of 
minute dots which form the lines and the 
tones of the portrait. An adaptation, in a 
more minute grain, of the French crayon- 
manner, the English stipple lends itself ad- 
mirably to the smooth blendings and soft 
modeling of the sweet allegorical plates, 
which Bartolozzi produced with indefatiga- 
ble industry. Stipple prints quickly gained 
the favor not only of the British public, 
but also held sway for a while on the Con- 
tinent. The process was eminently suited, 
and often used, for color-printing, or for 
slight suggestions of color introduced in the 
printing, to add to their charm. 

The medium most particularly fostered 
in England is mezzotint engraving; orig- 
inary from Germany, it found in the island 
kingdom a happy soil for its speedy growth. 
When Lely, Kneller, Gainsborough, Reyn- 
111 



PRINTS 

olds, and all that famous group of painters 
gave to the world their magnificent array of 
portraits, there existed no school of line 
engravers in England, no group of masterly 
engravers or etchers such as those of the 
Netherlands or of France. The field, there- 
fore, was clear for mezzotint, and it seems 
as though no other process could have 
more adequately interpreted the achieve- 
ments of the great portraitists. Their preva- 
lent breadth of treatment, devoid of small, 
niggling detail, their numerous women's por- 
traits, with soft, rounded forms, subtle 
transitions of tone, sparkling accents of light 
and blending depths of shadow, were admir- 
ably suited to the "black art." Hence the 
rise, during the eighteenth century, of a 
large school of mezzotint engravers, who at- 
tained great perfection in their chosen me- 
dium, progressing from prints of a sooty, 
black appearance to plates of clear, fine tex- 
ture, like the portrait of Mrs. Carnac here 
reproduced, an engraving by John Raphael 

112 




MRS. CARNAC 
John Raphael Smith 



ENGLAND 

Smith. One is apt, quite naturally, to ac- 
cord to engravings like this the credit due 
to the painter for his graceful composition. 
Quite aside, however, from matters of com- 
position and beauty of subject, the mere 
charm of intense shadow and brilliant high 
light, with transitions of breath - like deli- 
cacy, rendered with the velvety richness pe- 
culiar to mezzotint, will readily explain the 
vogue and costliness of such prints. No 
half-tone reproduction, however good, can 
convey an idea of the texture of mezzotint- 
ing. An examination of good, early impres- 
sions of mezzotint portraits by such men as 
McArdell, Watson, Ward, Green, Reynolds, 
or other notables of the scraper, will prove 
their merits much more convincingly than 
words. 

While portraiture is the field par excellence 
of mezzotint achievement, other possibilities 
of the process are evidenced by plates like 
the flower and fruit piece here shown, in 
which Richard Earlom proves himself a 
113 



PRINTS 

gifted interpreter of Huysum. The varied 
surfaces, the dehcate bloom on the fruit, and 
all those little touches dear to the Dutch 
painter — sparkling dewdrops, insects, the 
velvety underside of an overturned leaf — 
are faithfully reproduced. We almost seem 
to see the actual colors of the painting, so 
carefully have the values been gauged. In 
no other process could the painting have 
been transcribed more pleasingly. The men- 
tion of Earlom as the engraver of a large 
series of landscape plates, the "Liber Verita- 
tis," after sketches by Claude Lorrain, leads 
us to J. M. W. Turner, to whom these plates 
suggested the well-known "Liber Studio- 
rum," but of this more in our review of the 
nineteenth century. 

In the matter of woodcut, little need be 
said in this brief outline, aside from Jack- 
son's chiaroscuros, until we come to Thomas 
Bewick and with him to an important re- 
vival of the relief process in modified form. 
Bewick recognized the possibilities of the 
114 




FLOWER AND FRUIT PIECE 
Richard Earlom 



ENGLAND 

wood block, if cut across the grain, instead of 
plank wise as used for the old woodcut. The 
plank block necessitates the use of the knife; 
a cross-grain block of boxwood on the other 
hand, permits the use of that king of instru- 
ments, the graver. Wood - engraving once 
established by Bewick, and elaborated by 
his followers, rapidly spread over Europe, 
ultimately to reach its highest form of tech- 
nical perfection in the United States. 



IX 

THE UNITED STATES 

In early days, the American colonies were 
indifferent if not inhospitable to the fine 
arts. Only portraiture and expressions of 
patriotism found a welcome, both in paint- 
ing and engraving. These, with some maps, 
diagrams, and views, gave partial employ- 
ment to a few engravers, with such addi- 
tions to their number as landed from time 
to time from Europe for a sojourn more or 
less prolonged. Prominent among early ar- 
rivals was Peter Pelham, an artist of good 
abilities, who portrayed in mezzotint a num- 
ber of New England ministers. 

Passing on to the Washington period, we 
find in Charles Willson Peale an American 
painter-engraver of merit. Such mezzotint 
portraits as General and Lady Washington, 
Lafayette, Franklin, and others easily rank 

116 




THOMAS JEFFERSON 
David Edwin 



THE UNITED STATES 

among the best native productions of that 
period. David Edwin, an immigrant from 
England, brought proficiency in stipple en- 
graving. His merits can be judged from the 
best of his plates, the portrait of Thomas 
Jefferson, appropriately simple and digni- 
fied in execution. With the advancing nine- 
teenth century, engraving becomes plentiful 
in this country. Publishers require many 
portraits, views, subjects of all kinds, nor 
must we forget the important and flourish- 
ing branch of bank-note engraving. This 
teeming activity brings with it a commer- 
cial sameness of execution, a workmanlike, 
metallic sleekness, not quite absent even 
in the charming vignettes of John Cheney, 
which adorn the gift-books of the forties 
and fifties. A portrait of Chief Justice Mar- 
shall, engraved by Asher Brown Durand, 
after Inman's painting, is shown as an illus- 
tration of good nineteenth - century work. 
Generally speaking, portrait engraving had 
fallen into a rut, suggested by the tonality 
117 



PRINTS 

of photographs, a development shared by 
wood-engraving. 

The ingenious innovation of the EngHsh- 
man Thomas Bewick — which rejuvenated 
and refined the mishandled and discred- 
ited woodcut, by substituting cross-grained 
blocks of boxwood and the graver, for planks 
and the knife — was championed in Amer- 
ica by Dr. Alexander Anderson. None of 
the early American wood-engravers were en- 
dowed with great artistic gifts, but ere long 
the steady demand by publishers brought to 
the fore men of acknowledged ability. Their 
achievements are plentifully illustrated in 
books and magazines; the "Still-life with 
the Peacock," engraved by W. J. Linton, 
a well-known writer on wood-engraving, is 
reproduced here as a reminder of their skill. 
Originally the tendency of wood-engraving, 
or white-line engraving, as it is sometimes 
called, had been to obtain effects by white 
lines (the natural expression of the graver 
on the black surface of the block) and by 
118 




CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL 
Asher Browu Diiraud 




STILL-LIFE WITH THE PEACOCK 
Wood-engraving. W. J. Linton 



THE UNITED STATES 

black and white masses. As the wood-en- 
graver grew proficient in his technique, he 
widened his field by imitating the effect of 
etching or engraving on copper, in rivalry 
with this form of illustration. In this he 
succeeded so well that the other, more ex- 
pensive modes of adornment were largely 
driven from the field of book illustration. 
With the advent of photography, the de- 
sign could be fixed upon the wood block 
mechanically, accurately, without the trou- 
ble of a careful drawing. The values of tone 
in the photograph relieved the engraver 
from the work of translating color-values 
into black and white. The blending half- 
tones of the photograph invited close imi- 
tation, and thus tone-engraving developed, 
with its masses of fine lines, close together, 
merging into tone. Beautiful results were 
achieved in this way by men like Jtingling, 
French, Timothy Cole, Wolf, and many 
other engravers; but soon the human hand 
was dispossessed altogether by the half- 
119 



PRINTS 

tone plate which makes the photographic 
image printable by mechanical means alone. 
The great European revival of etching 
extended to the United States in the seven- 
ties. It proved a fruitful period, with names 
like the Morans, Ferris, Farrar, Duveneck, 
Charles Piatt, and many others which might 
be mentioned. The vogue of etching, it will 
be remembered, was short because medi- 
ocrities soon glutted the market and sent 
purchasers to other fields for a while. Inter- 
est in the process has awakened again of late, 
but that is matter of too recent date to be 
discussed in these few pages. 



X 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

From a survey of prints in their varying 
national aspects, we have arrived now at 
that vast period of an art increasingly cos- 
mopolitan, the nineteenth century. In these 
last hundred years nationality has blended 
together to a great extent; travel is not the 
serious matter of former times, a pastime 
rather than a venture; all races have inter- 
mingled in the great world-centers ; students 
from far and near congregate in the centers 
of art. All these factors, and many others, 
contribute in making artistic expression 
individual, less and less national in charac- 
ter. No sudden phase, this, rather an insen- 
sible general trend toward individuality as 
the great requisite in an artist's work. The 
masterpieces of the fine arts had been inter- 
preted by means of prints since the sixteenth, 
and especially since the advent of the "clas- 
121 



PRINTS 

sical" engravers in the eighteenth, century. 
The increasing number of these reproductive 
prints made it ever easier for an artist to 
acquaint himself, in a way, with the great 
achievements of the past. Finally photogra- 
phy, and in its wake the photo-mechanical 
processes, brought a flood of exact docu- 
ments invaluable for study, a lure to imita- 
tion for the unimaginative or indolent, a 
spur to the real artist, helpful in forming 
his own powers. 

Individuality seems the keynote of the 
nineteenth century; hence it may be as well 
not to bind ourselves to headings and subdi- 
visions, but rather to roam at large through 
this enormous sphere. Goya, of whom we 
spoke in a preceding chapter, belongs here 
by right, and with Fortuny forms the Span- 
ish contingent in the new awakening of the 
graphic arts. In England there lived, about 
the turn of the century, a visionary poet and 
great artist, William Blake, who fluently 
expressed himself in strangely fascinating 
122 







PLATE FROM THE BOOK OF JOB 
William Blake 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

compositions of religious or fantastic im- 
port, doubtless familiar to us all. Our con- 
cern is not with Blake's drawings, in which 
he adds the charm of exquisite color to his 
command of expressive form. A plate taken 
from his remarkable series of illustrations to 
the Book of Job, shows his powerful, poetic 
conception of the beginning of life, when the 
world was young and the morning stars sang 
together. In a totally different way, illus- 
trative of another phase of this same new 
awakening, the work of Daniel Chodowiecki 
shows a man concerned with the world which 
surrounds him. We see him here, at work in 
the midst of his family, on his little illustra- 
tions which went forth in their hundreds to 
embellish the bountiful stream of German 
literature. 

Goya's vivid, realistic allegories, Blake's 
fantastic, powerful conceptions, Chodowiec- 
ki's living portrayal of the world of his day, 
no longer follow the beaten track of imi- 
tative work, — all these activities point to a 
123 



PRINTS 

new phase in art. All this seems a reaction, a 
protest against the mental attitude, the set 
standards and ideals of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. The vignette, so gay and graceful in 
the hands of Eisen, Gravel ot, or Moreau, 
had lost much of its esprit in the heavier, 
more sober style of the Empire. The classi- 
cal engraver was still in power, on the Con- 
tinent as well as in England, where Boy dell 
issued, in 1803, his monumental series of 
illustrations to Shakespeare's plays in large 
folio plates. On the other hand. Constable 
had broken away from the accepted stand- 
ards of landscape composition; he painted 
his native countryside as he saw it. Eng- 
land frowned upon him for this heresy, but 
his art was joyfully acclaimed in France. 
There arises everywhere a buoyant, youthful 
spirit, conscious of infinite possibilities, filled 
with unbounded aspirations. The leaders in 
the movement emancipate themselves from 
the sterile cult of precedent ; they blaze new 
trails into the vast unknown, in their search 
124 







O 18 

X Q 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

for truth. Kant's philosophy, Darwin's the- 
ory of evolution, sufficiently denote the 
trend of the times; in literature, this is the 
period of Byron, Scott, Wordsworth, of 
Manzoni, of Goethe, of Nodier, Balzac, Vic- 
tor Hugo. Barrye carries realism into his 
sculpture and such men as Delacroix, De- 
camps, and Celestin Nanteuil carry roman- 
ticism into French painting and French 
prints. Men, these, whose imaginative souls 
rebel against petrified classicism and formal, 
abstract beauty, and this protest of the 
young and ardent against the tyranny of the 
" old and accepted order of things " has been 
heard ever since, — sometimes the voice 
of coteries, sometimes that of individu- 
als: Constable's, for instance, which helped 
France in its remarkable awakening. His 
simple creed was faithfully transposed in 
terms of mezzotint by David Lucas. Unfor- 
tunately these effective landscape mezzo- 
tints are so fleeting in their delicate effects 
that they can be appreciated only in en- 
125 



PRINTS 

graver's proofs. The relative position of 
Constable and Turner, in English land- 
scape, has been, not inaptly, compared with 
that of Van Dyck and Rubens in Flemish 
art. Certainly J. M. W. Turner was a sun 
in the English firmament, the painter of im- 
posing canvases and water-colors of haunt- 
ing loveliness; the leader likewise in a 
stupendous development of landscape en- 
graving revealed in series like his "England 
and Wales" and his vignettes for "Roger's 
Italy" among others of equal fame. Su- 
preme among his prints stands a set known 
as "Liber Studiorum," undertaken in rivalry 
with Claude Lorrain, whose memoranda 
sketches of pictures painted constitute the 
"Liber Veritatis," engraved subsequently 
in England by Earlom. In his "Liber" ^ 
Turner proceeds to display his art in all its 
versatility, engraving some of the plates 

' A series of one hundred plates, seventy-one of which 
were published by the artist, then discontinued, because 
financially unsuccessful. 

126 




'■• ( 1 




ii 


1 


Bi 


il 



Cm 

rt = 
05 .2 



■'T:5II!5«»T>'«f«E««ffl»«KBSf 




02 1-5 

a :: 

Q i 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

himself and closely supervising the mezzo- 
tinting of the others. This "Inverary Pier," 
his own throughout, is a glorious vision of 
morning on the shores of Loch Fyne. The 
night mists are clearing in the sunlight; a 
luminous haze still trails along between the 
hills, beyond the quiet water. The scene 
suggests unbounded space and calm, peace- 
ful beauty. Another plate, "iEsacus and 
Hesperie," carries us into the depth of the 
woods. The figures are mere accessories: 
what we potently feel is the fragrant shade, 
emphasized by a slanting shaft of sunlight, 
which gleams on soil, branch, and leaf, and 
builds a pathway of light amidst the lumi- 
nous shadows. 

In the early nineteenth century two new 
processes demand recognition : wood-engrav- 
ing and lithography. The former, reviewed 
in the preceding chapter with reference to its 
development in America, speedily gained in 
technical perfection at the hands of English 

m 



PRINTS 

engravers. It spread far and wide in Europe, 
adapting itself to the charming illustrations 
of Ludwig Richter and doing full justice to 
the expressive, accurate line of Adolph von 
Menzel's pen-and-ink work. Light and vi- 
vacious in the vignettes of Tony Johannot, 
Gigoux, Celestin Nanteuil, it grows somber 
in Dore's designs for the Bible and for 
Dante's "Divina Commedia." 

Shortly after the advent of wood-engrav- 
ing, lithography appears, and offers the 
tempting inducement of utmost technical 
simplicity to the artist. The drawing is made 
on the stone or on transfer paper with litho- 
graphic ink or crayon; the transferring and 
preparation of the stone (or metal plate) 
with acid, gum, and water is left to the 
printer. No wonder that the process found 
wide favor and that it was put to a great va- 
riety of uses: innumerable portraits, endless 
series of views, costume plates, music titles, 
reproductions of pictures. In the hands of 
artists the process proves its merit by such 
128 




H s 




9 Q 



!?5 '^ 

O 

O 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

prints as "Christ Disputing with the Doc- 
tors," by Adolph von Menzel, that untiring 
pioneer of reaHsm in Germany. The scene 
with its masterly characterization is aston- 
ishing in the play of expression on each face 
and figure. In France both processes burst 
into profuse bloom with the awakening of 
romanticism. The thirties and forties bring 
a wealth of notable lithographic produc- 
tions, the work of Delacroix, Isabey, Geri- 
cault. Decamps, Diaz, and a host of other 
artists. Gavarni uses this easy medium to 
portray in thousands of sketches the life of 
all Paris. Daumier portrays the frailties of 
humanity in his cartoons for "Charivari" 
and "La Caricature," or else wields his 
crayon as a formidable political weapon; in 
the print selected for illustration he shows 
us Louis Philippe at the death-bed of a po- 
litical offender " who can now be released, 
being no longer dangerous." 

The fortunes of France, fraught with con- 
quest under the first Napoleon, sink to 
129 



PRINTS 

humdrum levels with the Restoration. For 
years all recollection of the Emperor and his 
Grande Armee is embittered by the final dis- 
aster. But passing years restore the luster 
of former great exploits, and gradually these 
become a favorite subject for illustration. 
The field is well covered by Charlet's mili- 
tary scenes, though none of these approach 
the grandeur and skill displayed by Auguste 
Raffet. In his "Midnight Review" we see 
innumerable hosts of shades, passing in re- 
view before the phantom emperor on his 
white charger; an immense concourse in- 
sensibly merging into the mists of night. 

In the forties there is a welcome revival of 
etching, Charles Jacque being one of the pio- 
neers, skillful alike in his handling of acid 
and dry-point. His theme is the peasant's 
life, his setting the wooded, undulating re- 
gion about Barbizon: broad, sunny fields, 
thriving farms, pastures with cattle, sheep, 
and pigs, for which he shows an especial 
predilection. The peasant, here, is no longer 

130 






» 


Pd 


;« 


M 


(^ 


R 


(D 


W 


QO 


e 




z 


3 
-«1 


w 






WOMAN CHURNING 
J. F. Millet 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

the joyous, carousing, merry being of Os- 
tade's fancy. In the plates of Millet and 
Jacque we see him at his daily labors and 
the woman at her household tasks, as in 
the "Woman Churning," by Jean Frangois 
Millet, drawn in sober, telling lines, and 
evoking by some subtle magic a sense not 
only of the scene before us, but of her sur- 
roundings and her whole labor-laden life. 

We must pass with a mention even such 
masters as Corot and Daubigny, both of 
whom have left us spirited examples, in etch- 
ing, of their masterly interpretation of na- 
ture. The period we now reach brings a 
flood of etching, and it is but natural that 
the sketchy freedom, the suggestiveness 
sought by this new school, should conflict 
with the set, time-honored traditions of en- 
graving. That serious old gentleman — En- 
graving — did not approve of the rollicking 
youngster who knocked at the gates of the 
Academy and the Institut for admission. 
The battle, after all, was not so much a 
131 



PRINTS 

quarrel between etching and engraving; 
rather a contest between formula versus orig- 
inal thought. Both in England and France 
the same conflict arose, the etchers calling 
the other side mechanical, petrified; the en- 
gravers retorting that etching, "even in the 
hands of Rembrandt, is uncertain, blunder- 
ing." This dictum of Ruskin and the fiery 
rejoinder by Sir Seymour Haden are mat- 
ters of history. Our illustration, the dry- 
point "Sunset in Ireland," will sufficiently 
show that the president of the Painter- 
Etchers' Society was as apt with the etch- 
ing-point as he was formidable in debate. 
The painter-etcher is an originating artist, 
but the success of his creations on the cop- 
per depends a good deal on the skill of the 
printer, who can, by differences of inking, 
wiping, pressure, and heat make an impres- 
sion hard or soft in effect, rich and dark or 
pale and silvery at wish. To a man of James 
McNeill Whistler's exquisite sensibilities 
and refined taste this thought of depend- 
132 




.liSikiiLaLjfcji 




THE DOORWAY. VENICE 
James McNeill Whistler 




LE PETIT PONT 
Charles Meryon 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
ence on another for his subtle effects of Hght 
and tone could not but prove unendurable. 
Therefore he installed a press at his home 
and did his own printing of choice impres- 
sions, realizing in these, to the fullest extent, 
the possibilities of effectiveness and beauty 
which we admire in his etchings. Art has 
been defined as a selection from the truth, 
and, indeed, the elimination of unimportant 
detail and the accenting of the essentials 
make for the great charm in Whistler's etch- 
ings as well as in his numerous lithographs. 
From this versatile genius, delightful in his 
rendering of the human figure and likeness, 
who evokes with equal facility the shimmer- 
ing vistas of Venetian lagoons or the quaint- 
ness of an old French street, who can fas- 
cinate with a fleeting glimpse of a fish-shop, 
or make a lovely vision of a foggy reach of 
the Thames, we must now turn to one who 
has forever fixed in his plates a truthful yet 
ideal likeness of old Paris. "Le Petit Pont" 
by Charles Meryon is a characteristic plate 
133 



PRINTS 

with heavy shadows, fine feehng for struc- 
tural essentials, endless modifications of 
light, and with Notre Dame made duly im- 
pressive by lifting it high above the nearer 
buildings. Every plate has a character of its 
own, with here and there a weird reminder 
of the artist's ultimate mental doom. Only 
a poet could have conceived a plate like 
the "Stryge," that evil figure on Notre 
Dame, surveying the vast field of his con- 
quests. 

As we survey the reproductive processes, 
they are drawn, one and all, into the cur- 
rent of new, original expression. Innovators 
appear even in the conservative camp of en- 
graving; Ferdinand Gaillard, for instance, an 
engraver^ in that he uses the graver, though 
he uses it in a manner to him particular, ex- 
pressive of minutest detail. "My aim," he 
says, "is not to charm but to be truthful. 
My art consists in saying all." And he ex- 
presses "all" in this wonderful portrait of 

134 




DOM PROSPER GUfiRANGER 
Ferdinand Gaillard 





wm 



I- 



ii M 



J- 






GIRL BATHING 
Anders Zom 



/, ' Mf/ 




EXPULSION FROM PARADISE 
From "Eva und die Zukuuft." Max Klinger 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

Dom Prosper Gueranger. No detail has 
escaped him in his scrutiny of this strong, 
bright face with its searching, clear eyes. 
A counterpart of Gaillard — a painter-en- 
graver similarly minute and precise with his 
burin — is Stauffer-Bern, a Swiss of German 
training. 

Now, if we compare a print of the early 
times with the technical creations of our 
present day, we cannot but realize the in- 
creased demands made upon the artist. The 
phenomena of light must be ever studied 
anew, in the endeavor to attain new, effec- 
tive, convincing ways of expression — not 
merely of color and form as heretofore, but 
of atmosphere, of light, of vibrating, living, 
I had almost said "moving, " nature. Hence 
impressionism; hence, also, daring experi- 
ments like this girl bathing, by Anders Zorn, 
the Swedish painter-etcher. Here is a dis- 
tinct outdoor feeling; the breeze and sun, 
the modeling of rock, and the softly rounded 
nude body against its hard face. Every- 
135 



PRINTS 

thing is done with long, slashing strokes, 
with hardly any definite outline ; a wonder- 
ful display of skill. Another illustration, the 
"Expulsion from Paradise," by that Ger- 
man master of many arts, Max Klinger, 
shows us an effect of most intense expres- 
sion of light in the glaring foreground, where 
a merciless sun beats down on the first 
couple: a world all the more arid by con- 
trast with the cool, shady woodland behind 
the huge, guarded gateway. 

The nearer we approach to the present 
day, the more difficult, even painful, be- 
comes the work of selection; painful because 
of the many gems barred from inclusion by 
the necessary restriction of space. A longer 
review, including men like Lalanne, Legros, 
Lepere, Schmutzer, Geyger, Munch, Lieber- 
mann. Bone, Cameron, Bauer, would needs 
have to include many others, and dispropor- 
tionately swell this closing chapter. 

If the few prints mentioned — a very 
few picked from a field immensely rich — 
136 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

should awaken in the reader a desire for 
further exploration in this world of prints, 
the purpose of these pages will have been 
achieved. 



THE END 



Books Recommended for Study of Prints 

To those bent on further inquiry into the subject 
of prints, two books of prime importance can be most 
warmly recommended, namely : — 

Hind, Arthur M. A Short History of Engraving and 
etching, with full bibliography, classified list and 
index of engravers. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 
1908. 

(An excellent, comprehensive book, with exhaustive 
lists and indexes, dealing with intaglio prints up to the 
present day.) 

Kristeller, Paul. Kupferstich und Holzschnitt in 
vier Jahrhunderten. Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1905. 

(A masterly review of the whole field of prints, in- 
cluding woodcuts, but unfortunately exclusive of the 
nineteenth century. This also contains an extensive 
bibliography.) 

The careful perusal of either book will provide a 
good foundation, and the excellent lists of books at 
the end of each of them will safely guide the reader 
in his subsequent studies. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



H 55 85 




-ov^^ ' 






















O, A • ^ 



.' r% '-mms .r\ '^) 



# %- '• 


















<^^ cO«a, - 







^^<^' 




'^^4^' 



s^-V 










'" %,«^ • 












'bV^ 




'^o^ 



L^^ O. 







HECKMAN 

BINDERY INC. 




NOV 84 



\»ji=w- N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 








